


One Touch

by little_scribbler



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Swan Queen Big Bang 2014, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2287964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_scribbler/pseuds/little_scribbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If someone had told Regina that meeting the Saviour would mark her end and burgeon new beginnings, she would have fire-balled them on the spot. One touch was all it took to snowball everything she had sacrificed her life to attain. What gave the Saviour the right to meddle in another’s heart without warning? Furthermore, why was destiny so hell-bent on guiding her heart to places it shouldn't even be dreaming about. Regina was determined to take charge for once, and no heart-jumping, redemption-offering Saviour was going to stop her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the meet

**Author's Note:**

> My first story in this particular fandom, but certainly not my first ever. I had a blast writing my current fave couple-that-should-be-a-couple, however, time wasn't kind to me. As a result, this story is unbeta'd, but I hope it proves enjoyable despite that fact. Happy reading SwanQueen fans! And thanks to the organisers of the SQBB that got my off my proverbial backside to write this story.

There she was, the woman she never wanted to meet. Henry’s birth mother. Regina’s night of motherly panic, terror and pain ended the moment she saw Henry walk up the path safe and sound. His cold brush-off and undiplomatic introduction of the birth mother almost went unnoticed, such was her relief to find him unharmed. Of course, then the words “real mum” sank in and Regina fixed her eyes on the uncomfortable-looking blonde woman trying to shrink into the background.

“You-you’re Henry’s birth mother?” Regina heard herself say.

“Hi,” Emma said with a shy smile.

 _You shouldn’t be here_ , Regina screamed silently. Listening to the Sherriff mutter something to her about Henry, she cast her eyes over the woman shuffling uncomfortably before her; the long golden locks curling down past her shoulders, a red jacket of bargain-basement quality, jeans painted onto toned legs, and those eyes … those green, green eyes. Before Regina realised it, she had offered the woman a glass of her favoured cider.

“Got anything stronger?” Emma asked in return. Regina almost sneered. Of course she’d want to inebriate herself. It fit the mould of unfit birth mother perfectly. Regina smirked and led the woman into her home, making a mental note to watch that nothing valuable was within Miss Swan’s reach.

“How did he find me?” Emma asked as she shuffled at the entryway to the dining room.

“I have no idea,” Regina answered, adding silently to herself that she had every intention of finding out. “I adopted him when he was three weeks old. It was a closed adoption, the records were sealed. I was told the birth mother didn’t want any contact.” Regina kept her back to the woman as she busied her hands and pondered the lengths she may be required to go to to get rid of the unwanted parent.

“You were told right,” Emma answered. Her boots scuffed at the tiles below her feet. 

“And the father?”

“There was one.”

“Do I need to be worried about him?” Regina asked with an edge of protectiveness to her voice as she gathered the glasses of scotch she filled.

“Nope. Doesn’t even know.”

Regina spun from her position beside the table and approached Emma. “Do I need to be worried about you, Miss Swan?”

Emma reached for the glass, poised to answer, when their fingers touched. Both women gasped in shock at the sudden burst of electricity climbing through their skin from the point of contact. A flash of white light blinded the pair as green eyes met brown in shock. The next moment, complete and utter darkness surrounded them.

###

Regina felt herself falling through the air in the nothingness that suddenly surrounded her. Before she had a chance to process the sensation and consider panicking, her feet hit the ground with a painful crunch. As her body followed with an undignified slap, a scream erupted beside her. The ground below her, and that of the ground below the body beside her, erupted into an orange glow at the point of contact. Before she had a chance to register the strange light, a wave of realisation hit her as the woman beside her screamed in pain. Magic was here. She could feel it course through her like a breath of life. It was sensational. Tipping her head back, she shut her eyes and smiled as energy filled her _. She missed this. Oh, how she missed this._

Her eyes snapped open. _Magic. Magic shouldn’t be in Storybrooke._

_Emma Swan!_

Turning her attention to the woman beside her who was clutching at her ankle with a sob, Regina stood and looked down at her. Green eyes opened in wide shock as Regina picked Emma up by her throat, and held her aloft with magical assistance. Regina squeezed her fingers around that slender throat.

“Who are you!” she growled.

Grabbing futilely at the arm crushing her windpipe, Emma stared back at her with a look of sheer terror. Regina tried not to notice the similarities between her eyes and those of Henry’s. She squeezed a little tighter. “I said, who are you!”

“I—I …” Emma spluttered, apparently preferring to concentrate on sucking as much oxygen into her lungs as she could. Her eyes almost rolled into the back of her head.

Unwilling to render the woman unconscious and miss the answers she desperately sought, Regina emitted a deep sound of annoyance and released enough pressure on that pretty little neck to allow the woman to breathe. 

“Who are you, Miss Swan, and where have you taken me?” Regina said, her voice deep and threatening.

“I don’t know,” Emma croaked, her voice trembling. 

With a noise of disgust, Regina dropped Emma, who fell to the floor in a tangled mess. With disinterest, Regina looked at her crumpled form. Everywhere she touched, the cavern of ink black was penetrated by the orange ember-like glow coming from the ground. Emma seemed to fixate on the light as an alternative to wrapping her mind around the situation, and pressed her hand to the ground, lifting it to find her handprint marking the floor in the soft light that looked like glowing coals. The light from the floor cast interesting shadows across the distraught woman’s face as she looked up at Regina in confusion.

“W-where are we?” Emma asked as she shuffled into a sitting position, wincing and grabbing at her ankle.

“You tell me, Miss Swan.” Dropping all pretence of the life she had been leading for twenty-eight years, Regina flicked her wrist and a globe of light appeared in her hand. Emma emitted a strangled cry of surprise as Regina held it up threateningly. “Tell me where you’ve taken me this instant, or so help me, I _will_ destroy you.” 

Emma held out her hands defensively and her eyes never left that ball of light. “I-I don’t know. Please … please, I don’t understand this. What’s happening?”

“Clearly, _you_ happened.” 

Emma began to shake her head fitfully from side to side. “I don’t know,” she repeated. 

The globe of light flickered in Regina’s hand as she tried to determine the genuineness of the mess of a woman at her feet. All thoughts about giving her the benefit of the doubt evaporated as a name slipped from Emma’s lips.

“H-Henry—”

“You don’t mention my son!” Regina screamed, throwing her ball of energy over the woman’s head, taking little notice as it hit the ground behind and sending out ripples of orange light from where it hit. She instead grabbed the woman by the throat again. “He is _my_ son! What do you want with him!”

Emma shook her head as she gasped and whimpered under Regina’s crushing fingers.

“I am going to _end_ you, Miss Swan. You will never live to regret your deceit. I _will_ find my way back to him, do you understand me! This little trick of yours hasn’t worked. You have no idea who you’ve just messed with.”

Emma visibly crumpled under Regina’s hands. Tears fell in hot streams and her body shuddered fiercely as she shook her head. 

“Wake up, Emma,” she muttered to herself. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up …”

Unwilling to listen to the nonsensical rambling of the confused woman, Regina allowed a satisfied smirk to cross her lips as she closed off the windpipe of the woman beneath her. “Goodbye, Miss Swan,” she muttered.

She felt the woman begin to go limp beneath her hands but before she was able to claim victory, she was snatched backwards by an unseen force and rendered immobile. Struggling against invisible shackles, Regina screamed out in frustration before being rendered mute as the same treatment was given to Emma. She watched as the woman was snatched from the ground and held in the air; her hands out to the side, invisibly shackled in a similar fashion as herself.

“What is this?” Regina snapped at the woman in front of her, knowing how useless the question was as she uttered it. The look on Miss Swan’s face looked as confused as she was. Regina glared at the weeping green eyes across from her, searching for answers. Emma shook her head.

A curious pressure gripped Regina’s right hand, and she found herself being slowly drawn closer to Emma. The unseen force guided her hand over Emma’s heart, and with a gratified grin, Regina felt her hand being pressed into the woman’s chest. Emma’s eyes flew wide as Regina gripped the beating heart now encased in her hand.

“Like I said, goodbye, Miss Swan,” Regina declared happily, using all the force she could muster to squeeze on the woman’s heart. Emma’s eyes widened and a guttural scream filled the air. As Regina closed her fist, she found herself unable to deliver the death blow. The muscles in her arm tensed as she tried to crush the heart to dust, but the unseen force held her back. “No,” she growled in frustration.

Suddenly released from their invisible shackles, Regina and Emma fell to their knees in front of one another; Regina’s hand still buried inside Emma’s chest. Emma clutched at Regina’s forearm, trying to force the hand away from her. Green eyes met brown and an instant later another flash of brilliant light hit them both. Arching their backs and crying to the darkness above them, the women were suddenly inundated by a flash of images.

Gritting her teeth, Regina could do nothing but succumb.

_Infant cries filled her ears and there, before her eyes was a fair, dark-haired woman looking down at her with tear-filled eyes._

Snow? Is that _Snow White_?

_A sudden darkness collapsed in on her as a man placed her down gently and shut a pair of doors._

Charming?

_  A forest greeted her as the darkness subsided. Green eyes peering from a freckled face smiled at her.  _

Pinocchio?What is this?

_Bars. That little boy’s face smiled at her through bars. A cot. A baby’s cot._

_Where am I?_ Regina questioned.

Images began to flash past in a dizzying rush. _A man and a woman smiling at her, caring for her before waving a tearful goodbye. The pain and the fear of having to leave. Children smiling and sneering at her from rows of sterile-looking beds. A different man and a woman smiling at her and promising her a home. The crying and disappointment when they took her back. Nobody wanted her. Why? She was trying to be good!_

_Loneliness. Nothing but sheer loneliness surrounded by the cold white rooms of an institution and the ringing taunts of older children._

_Another family. No smiles and hope this time. Just fear and desperation. Fear that they wouldn’t like her. Desperation that she wouldn’t be enough for them._

_She never was._

_Another group home. More taunts. The cupboard. Her only refuge in a confusing world. Locked away in the self-imposed darkness she felt safe. She couldn’t understand why a cupboard made her feel at peace, like it was able to take her somewhere where she could be loved._

_The peace never lasted._

_Another family of foster parents. That night the older kids broke the TV. She wasn’t fast enough to escape the cruel strike of a man’s hand across her cheek and the sobbing against a dusty corner of a small room. Trouble, they called her. Difficult. All she wanted was to find somewhere she belonged._

_Another institution. Emma’s sunken, withdrawn face staring back at her from a mirror. The grit of her teeth when she decided enough was enough. If nobody wanted her, then she would want for nobody in return._

_Another family. Shouting, screaming, hitting, fear. Running away._

_The harsh icy winter on the streets. Dirt, grime, poverty._

_A yellow car. A beetle. Thick-rimmed glasses covering distant green eyes. A man. Neal. Someone who offered friendship, then love. Stealing, running. That night when betrayal cut her heart open. Jail. That terrifying moment when she discovered she was pregnant. Feeling the baby move. Watching her stomach grow. The fear for the child. The doubt about being able to raise it in a good home. The choice of adopting out her child. Pain. Birth. Holding her crying, beautiful little boy in her arms._

_The heart-breaking moment they took him away. Her baby. The release from jail. The loneliness. Scrambling to make a life. Just getting by. Living in her car. Exhaustion as her day entailed one underpaid job after another. Desperation. Determination. Suffering one cruel twist of life after another. Finally, stability. Bounty hunting. The danger, the injuries, the fear that never went away._

_The wishes on her birthday’s. The day her wish came true as an image of a boy knocking on her door came to her._

Henry!

_The feeling of warmth at seeing her son again. The strange realisation that someone wanted to find her. The conflict. Driving the boy home. His theories about fairy-tale characters. His theory about his adoptive mother. The Evil Queen._

Excuse me!

_Henry’s theory about her being the Saviour._

Emma Swan is the Saviour! Snow White’s daughter … of course. Regina heard herself growl as the images continued.

_Walking up the path of the intimidating white house that represented everything she never had. Mayor Mills standing on the porch. The utter terror wiped from that grief-stricken face as she saw her son. The image of brown eyes meeting hers. The flush it sent through her body. Then moments later, falling into an abyss of nothingness. More fear. The brown-eyed woman choking the life from her. The hand in her chest. Then a flash._

Regina and Emma collapsed to the floor as the images stopped. Eyes rolling into the back of their heads, they slipped into unconsciousness as Regina’s hand fell from Emma’s chest.

*****

Regina woke with a gasp. Her eyes snapped open to find Emma’s face inches away from her own. The woman was still unconscious. Her features looking peaceful in the muted light radiating from where their bodies touched the ground.

Regina tried to move and realised her arm was still being clutched by Emma. Her hand, no longer in the chest of the other woman, was resting against the warmth of Emma’s neck, held there by the woman’s hands wrapped around her wrist. Regina jerked her fingers as the moments before their blissful unconsciousness came to her. Emma’s entire life had been branded onto her heart, her mind, leaving nothing out. The good, the bad and the ugly. Regina stared at Emma as she relived the woman’s life in her head. There had been very little hope in her life, so it appeared. Somewhere inside her she felt a tremble. Before she was able to place the sensation, Emma’s eyes opened and focused on hers. An image of Snow White flashed through Regina’s mind again. Snow White … Emma’s mother. 

Regina gasped and snatched her hand back. “You’re the Saviour!” she accused the woman.

Emma’s green eyes blinked in confusion. “Huh?” she said croakily.

Sitting up, Regina noticed the glowing marks made earlier by their movements around the darkness had faded. How long had they been out for?

 _Henry!_ Regina stood groggily as the thought of her son hit her. She needed to get back to him. She looked around her, trying to penetrate the darkness for a way out. She was now convinced that Emma was as clueless as she was about their whereabouts.

“Miss Mills?” Emma asked. “What … how …”

Regina cast her eyes down to Emma to find the woman rubbing her hand over her chest where her own hand had penetrated earlier.

“Think yourself lucky, dear, that I was unable to pull your heart from your chest. I guarantee that would have ended badly for you.”

“What?” Emma snapped as her eyes found Regina’s. Emma groaned. “This has to be a nightmare. There’s no other explanation.”

“I assure you, there are many.”

Emma rubbed her hand over her chest again. “You had my heart in your hand.”

“Yes. I know.”

“And then that weird flash again.”

Regina nodded, turning her attention away from the woman and back into the darkness.

“I don’t understand.”

Regina scoffed to herself. “Yes, dear. I gathered as much. Wouldn’t life be a little more interesting if you d—?” 

A sudden glow erupted between them, forcing them together to be bound by the hand. The light focused and twisted like a rope over the wrists of their conjoined hands. Looking almost like handcuffs, the light faded in brightness, leaving behind the unmistakable link between the women. 

“What the—?” Emma said hurriedly as she pulled her hand back. A sliver of barely distinguishable rope connected the two bracelets both women now sported on their wrists. “What is this?”

“I assure you, I don’t know. But I will find—”

Regina’s words were once again cut off as both women were launched upwards at an increasing pace. Blackness surrounded them again before they suddenly found themselves back in Regina’s dining room, hands touching as Regina handed Emma a glass of scotch. 

Gasping at the flash of light behind Emma’s eyes in that first instant, Regina flicked her eyes to their hands wrapped around the scotch glass. There, the cuffs linking them glowed faintly and in a blink, all memory of it was gone. 

###

“Do I need to be worried about you, Miss Swan?” Regina asked haughtily.

“Absolutely not,” Emma replied.

“Madame Mayor,” the Sherriff called from the stairs. “You can relax. Apart from being a tired little boy, Henry is fine.”

“Thank you, Sherriff,” Regina said, dismissing the man and turning her attention back to Miss Swan. 

“I’m a single mum,” Regina heard herself say after she settled the woman into her study. “I’m strict, but I do it for his own good. I don’t think that makes me evil, do you?”

Regina watched as Miss Swan placed her glass down on her antique table without a coaster. Internally, she grimaced but concentrated on keeping the innocent smile on her face.

“I’m sure he’s only saying that because of the fairy-tale thing,” Emma said.

“What fairy-tale thing?”

“Oh, you know, his book. And how he thinks everyone is a character from it.”

Regina looked back at her blankly.

“He thinks his shrink is Jiminy Cricket.”

Regina tried not to recoil with surprise. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said genuinely. Where had these sudden theories from her son come from?

“You know what, he’s your kid,” Emma said at the heavy silence. “I really should be heading back.”

Regina wasted no time showing Miss Swan the door. Shutting it with a relieved sigh. Rubbing at her chest subconsciously, Regina shook off the odd feelings Emma invoked. It was time to find out everything she could about this woman and ensure her rapid departure from Henry’s life.

On the other side of the door, Emma placed her own hand over her chest and rubbed. Something about Regina Mills had entranced her. From the moment she had taken the scotch glass from her, she couldn’t help but feel … involved. Shaking her head, she muttered to herself, “Get a grip, Swan.” Taking a step, she wondered to herself why her ankle was suddenly so sore.


	2. the mine

It was a nice ideal, thinking Miss Swan would leave that first night like she said she would, but reality proved to be so much more conflicting. She had lingered like a bad smell, forcing her way into her son’s life and being generally irritating. More than once Regina had entertained herself with the idea of ending her pitiful existence. Right now, however, she chose to ignore the notion to rid herself of the infuriating woman and concentrate instead on the fate of her son. 

Convinced it was Emma’s fault in the first place, Regina couldn’t deny the desperation she saw that the woman’s eyes at getting Henry back safely. Trapped in the Storybrooke mine, Regina was balancing on the edge of a full-blown panic attack. They all agreed that they needed to try something desperate to get him out of the collapsed mine, but the explosives did nothing but make it all worse. So much worse. Someone was going to pay, and pay dearly. 

Severely regretting her words of, “Blow it,” Regina turned away from Emma Swan’s grim discovery that the explosives didn’t reopen the mine and raced over to the explosive technician. “What was that!” She slammed her hand on the tray of his pick-up truck angrily. “What the _hell_ was that! You said you could do this!”

“Madame Mayor,” that infuriating voice said from behind her a moment before taking her elbow in her hand.

The light flashed again and the sensation of plummeting into a bottomless pit overcame her.

###

Momentary confusion engulfed her before a flood of memories crashed through her mind. She’d been here before. With Emma. She had held Emma’s heart in her hand. 

_No, not again. Not now. Not while Henry is trapped underground_ , Regina thought wildly. Feeling the familiar warmth of magic the further she fell, she used her ability to slow her descent and touched the ground lightly after witnessing another body hit the dark floor with a thump. The contact send ripples of orange light across the floor. 

“Miss Swan,” Regina said as her she landed gracefully in front of her.

“Regina?” Emma said standing up with some difficulty. She looked around and groaned. “We’re back.” Emma looked at her wrist. “And so are these weird glowy bracelets.”

Regina clenched her teeth as she studied the cuffs and the chain that bound her to Emma. “You noticed, dear?”

Taking a few steps away from the struggling woman, Regina felt the unseen force capture her like it did last time. There was a cry of surprise from behind her, and she was soon turned to face Emma who had been held up in the air in a similar position. This time, Emma’s hand was brought to Regina’s chest.

“No. No!” Regina screamed as she realised what was about to happen. “No, no, no, no!” she cried one last time as Emma’s hand entered her chest and warm fingers surrounded her heart. Regina stared into Emma’s frightened eyes as once again, a flash hit them both. Regina’s life unravelled before them in a burst of speed. Emma was barely able to focus on the highlights.

_The contented life of a small child with a father she adored. The open fields. The horses. A tumble and a torn, muddy dress. The wrath of her mother. The fear. The magic. The longing to please her. She tried. Tried so hard. The discipline. The abuse. The comfort of her father’s arms as he held her after each harsh lesson in behaviour. Riding. Her little bit of peace. Daniel. Love. Her blossoming heart. Her mother’s one-track mission to make her Queen. The child on the runaway horse. Snow White. The secrets. The betrayal. Witnessing her mother crush her love’s heart beneath cruel, twisted fingers. The heart-break. The utter, heart-shattering loss. Snow White. Betrayal. The blame. King Leopold. Rumplestiltskin. Sending her mother through the looking glass. Rumplestiltskin. Learning magic. Taking a heart. Crushing her own heart. Life as Queen. Duties of a wife in the bed chamber. Rumplestiltskin. Magic. Snow White. The attempts to build a life as Queen. To fit in. Her failure. The fairy. The promise of a soul mate. The man with the lion tattoo. Running away. The Genie. The manipulation. The apple tree. The Huntsman and the letter from the dead princess. Betrayal … again. The war against Snow White. The massacres in the name of the Queen. Posing as a peasant and being saved by Snow White. The near redemption. Taking of hearts. Being captured. Placed against a wooden brace for execution. The mind-numbing fear of death. The last minute pardon from Snow White. The anxiety and elation at being alive. The wariness of betrayal and the attempt on Snow’s life. The banishment. Sending an assassin after her mother. Regret and sorrow over her mother’s body. The poisoned apple. Snow White and Charming’s wedding. The curse. Maleficent. The heart of her horse. Rumplestiltskin. The Saviour. Taking the life of her father. The grief, sorrow and heartbreak as she held his heart. Enacting the curse. The baby. The race to reach the baby. The devastation as the child vanished in the magic wardrobe. Storybrooke. The satisfaction of watching Snow White stare down at the coma victim she no longer knew. Eighteen years of utter isolation and mind-numbing routine. Henry. Love. Warmth. That book. His disappearance. The birth mother. Those eyes. The fear. Their fingers touching and the fall through the abyss. Trying to take Emma’s life. The connection through their hearts._

Another flash and once again, the women crumpled to the floor unconscious.

*****

An indefinite amount of time passed before Regina’s eyes opened again. They felt gritty and puffy like she’d been crying. A hand to her cheek came back moist. The shock of reliving her life still trembled through her. Knowing the woman across from her, The Saviour, knew her life history sent a chill of fear through her. Focusing on the fallen woman, she found green eyes staring back at her in an expression she couldn’t read. 

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered across to her.

Regina blinked. “Pardon?”

“About your father. Your mother. Daniel.”

Regina sucked in a harsh breath. “You have no right to comment on anything you just saw. Do you understand me?”

“I’m just trying to be nice.”

Regina sat up and gritted her teeth. She looked at Emma with barely disguised vehemence and said, “Just because you’re the _Saviour_ gives you no right to judge my life.”

Emma blinked. Sitting up with a struggle, she replied, “And just because you’re the Evil Queen doesn’t mean someone can’t empathise. Shit … you’re the Evil god dammed Queen!” 

“Yes, I’m aware of that.”

“And our son … oh, God. Henry!” Emma looked at her with wild desperate eyes.

“Calm yourself, dear,” Regina said sounding far more confident than she felt. “If you recall, we went back last time without missing a moment of our lives. I’m confident we shall return to save _my_ son.”

“ _Our_ son.”

Regina merely raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m scared for him,” Emma muttered, her eyes downcast to the curious light below them.

“As am I,” Regina replied quietly. She bit down on the turmoil of worry and fear threatening to burst from her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said after a long pause.

Regina, sneered. If that woman was going to bring up Daniel again, she had another think coming. Feeling the magic swell and pool in her hand, it dissipated with a quiet pop as Emma said something unexpected.

“I’m sorry about your tree. I didn’t know what it meant to you. I’m … I’m just sorry, okay?”

Regina felt her jaw open and close as words failed to spring to mind. Clearing her throat, she said, “Yes, well, though I happily believe you’re comfortable with vandalising another’s personal property, I realise that if you had knowledge of how I cared for that tree for decades it may have given you pause.”

“I am not comfortable in vandalising anything. The only way I was going to make you listen to me was by doing something you didn’t expect.”

“My tree didn’t do anything _to_ you, Miss Swan. In fact, I recall offering you its fruit. I wasn’t lying when I said it was sweet.”

“No, but you lied about everything else, didn’t you?”

“What are you implying, Miss Swan?”

“Henry. You’re lying to Henry.”

“About what, exactly?”

“That you’re the Evil Queen. That you cursed a realm of fairy-tale characters and trapped them in Storybrooke.”

“That’s absurd!” Regina said, wishing against hope that this conversation wasn’t happening.

“Are you serious right now? I _know_ you did it. I’ve seen your heart, Regina. I know everything. I know the truth.” Emma stepped forward into Regina’s space. “I know you remember who you are in Storybrooke.”

Regina clenched her jaw and stared the woman down.

“Why are you lying to him?” Emma asked with an unexpected softness.

“And prove what, Miss Swan? What exactly is that going to accomplish? All it will look like is me allowing my son to perpetuate his delusions—”

“But they’re not delusions, Regina!”

“No, maybe not. But people like that ridiculous cricket will think so. All that will lead to is me being declared an unfit mother.” Regina stopped herself and bared her teeth at Emma. “But that’s what you want, isn’t it? That way you can take Henry away from me.”

“I … No! That is _not_ what I want! Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?” Emma gasped as Regina suddenly thrust her hand back into Emma’s chest and took a grip on her heart.

Squeezing the organ, Regina snarled at Emma. “Let’s see, shall we. Let’s see what truths you have in that pretty little heart of yours.” And with a flash of light, the women arched their backs and succumbed to the wave of memories made since they last parted the black hole.

Regina grit her teeth against the sensations.

_Emma’s confession at wishing for a family on her birthday, the curious feeling of warmth and fear she hadn’t known how to compute. The front page news article dredging up dirt on Emma declaring her a drunk driver. Operation Cobra. Her surprise at Henry’s theory that Snow White was her mother. Henry’s desperation to break the curse to get away from the Evil Queen. Archie handing over Henry’s files and Graham subsequently arresting her after a tip off. Cutting down half the apple tree. The confrontation with the Mayor. The regret and rush of adrenaline as she faced her in the garden._

_The genuine wish to help Henry and sincerity behind her words declaring Regina Henry’s mother. Wanting to stay in his life if only to witness him being loved – something she had never had the opportunity to see. Regina asking Emma to carry on with her transient life and leave Storybrooke. The distress that sent through her as she nursed her cocoa. Once again, she didn’t belong. She should have seen this coming. Nobody wanted her. No one but her son, and even he only wanted her around to break his imaginary curse. Nothing but a tool for someone else’s gain._

_Henry’s frequent appearances to work on Operation Cobra. The castle playground. Emma owing a favour to Mr Gold after helping Ashley, Cinderella, keep her child. Emma accepting the role as Deputy to start putting down roots that Regina declared she didn’t possess. The terror that decision made her feel. Why now? Why take the chance to make a home now? And here, in Storybrooke, where the mother of her son wants nothing but to destroy her?_

_Then the terrifying moment Henry became trapped in the mine._

The women collapsed to the floor, Emma slumping against Regina’s shoulder as the memories complete themselves. Panting, Emma moved back and took hold of Regina’s wrist.

“Can I have my heart back now?”

Regina snapped her hand away and stood rapidly, brushing down the tailored pants as if ridding herself of the orange glow that was beneath her knees. More to the point, she tried to brush away the feelings of regret at her words to Emma and the small part of her that wanted to tell her to stay and find a home in Storybrooke. Those feelings were as ridiculous as they were unwanted, and Regina swallowed them with practised care. 

Emma slowly stood beside her.

Regina cleared her throat and snapped, “It seems my son has a habit of disregarding my wishes and sneaking out to see you, Miss Swan.”

“Yes, maybe so, but Regina, he’s _your_ son. I’m not taking him away from you.”

“Yes … well … it seems you were being truthful.” Regina turned away from Emma and stared into the dizzying blackness around them. “What _is_ this place?” 

“The pit of despair?” Emma offered.

Regina rolled her eyes and lifted her wrist to study the bracelet cuffing it. “I’ve never seen this kind of magic before. It’s … strangely familiar.”

“Is it? Yeah, I agree,” Emma scoffed as she stepped up beside Regina.

Turning to face the woman, Regina snapped, “Miss Swan, as enlightening as your input is, I suggest you keep your uneducated comments to yourself. You know nothing about magic or the world I come from, so I implore you to remain silent as I try to figure this out.”

Emma shrugged. “Whatever.”

Regina shut her eyes and clenched her fists as Emma walked away from her. The temptation to end the woman’s life with a nicely aimed fireball was strong. And really, she had everything to gain by doing so. 

As the magic pooled at her hand, Emma turned and asked. “Why you?”

“Pardon?”

“Why us?”

Blinking for a moment to determine what Miss Swan was talking about, Regina finally answered. “Of all the questions you ask, you go for the one with the most obvious answer?”

Emma had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Yes, I get I’m the Saviour, you’re the big bad Evil bitch—”

“Excuse me!”

“—but what I don’t get, is why we’ve been forced to see each other’s lives. Isn’t that a disadvantage? Shouldn’t me understanding why you are the way you are beside the point?”

Frowning, Regina shook her head. “I don’t follow.”

“Regina, I don’t _want_ to defeat you.”

“You … what?”

“Henry has this all-in battle in his head. An epic war between good and evil. I don’t want that. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to defeat you if that’s what it means.”

Regina blinked and forced herself not to stumble as she took a step forward. “You don’t want to hurt me?”

Emma shook her head. “I’d like to think you wouldn’t want to hurt me either. Considering …” Emma’s gaze looked poignantly to the fireball sitting atop Regina’s hand.

With a flick, Regina made it vanish and cleared her throat. “Considering what?”

“That you’ve seen what my … my childhood was like.”

Images of emotional and physical abuse ran through Regina’s mind. Feelings of abandonment and worthlessness accompanied it and with another bitter swallow, she supressed them. “I may have seen your miserable life, Miss Swan, but I fail to see how I would consider that if I chose to take your life. In fact, I would _consider_ myself doing you a favour by ending it all.”

To her chagrin, Emma smiled.

“And just _what_ the hell are you smiling at.”

Emma leaned in and whispered, “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You _should_ be.”

“I know.”

Uncomfortable with the confident tone of the woman’s words, Regina stepped out of her personal space. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“I’m well aware of it, Madame Mayor. Don’t forget for a moment that I’ve seen the blood on your hands. I know exactly what you’re capable of.” Emma’s voice was low and hard.

“Then you’ll do well to remember that when you declare you’re not afraid of me, Miss Swan.”

“Oh, I’m not. Because I know why the woman behind the Evil Queen has done what she has. How the innocent miller’s daughter was shaped to become a monster. It’s _her_ , the girl that loved to ride, the girl that saved a child’s life … it’s _her,_ I’m not afraid of, and it’s _her_ that I trust.”

Regina shook her head. “You are a fool.”

“Maybe so. But you’re the woman who let my child into your life and loved him unconditionally. To me, that says a lot more than you’re willing to admit.”

Regina let out a snort of derision before turning her back on the woman. 

“Thank you,” Emma said.

Whirling around, Regina stared at her. “For what?”

“For loving Henry.”

“I …” Words failed her. Before she had a chance to say anything further, gravity disappeared and they were both being wrenched upwards at a sickening rate. A bright flash and they found themselves once again at the mine site. Before Emma’s hand was able to leave her elbow, Regina saw the bracelets glowing on their wrists and the flash of light in Emma’s eyes. As the hand was removed, there was a blink and it was over.

###

“They could’ve killed my son!” Regina cried at Emma. 

“I know, but this isn’t helping.” Emma’s green eyes looked sad and desperate, but behind that was a quiet confidence asking Regina not to give up just yet.

Regina let those words settle on her as her hand covered her face. Keep it together was the mantra she repeated in her head. Moments later, Emma let Pongo loose from the fire truck and they uncovered the air shaft. Henry was down there and Regina was desperate to reach him. Preparing to put herself on the line to save him, she was blocked by Emma.

“Lower me down,” she said, internally cringing at the confidence lacking in her voice.

“No way, I’m going,” Emma stated. 

“He’s my son!”

“He’s mine too. Please, Regina. You’ve been sitting behind a desk for ten years. I’ve got this.”

Feeling an odd connection with the woman pleading at her with those deep, green eyes, Regina stepped closer. She sucked in a sharp breath as she felt something tingle on her wrist at the proximity of the woman. The tingle was warm and spread up her arm and strangely set her at peace. “Just bring him to me,” she said softly … desperately. Sharing a lingering gaze with her son’s birth mother, Emma looked to make a silent promise to do just that.

Relief flooded her veins the moment Henry’s face appeared over the rim of the mine shaft. Pulling him away from the hole, she touched him wherever she could to make sure nothing was broken or out of place. Her heart refused to move down out of her throat until she had done so. Smiling at her boy, she felt a hand on her back and a sudden drop into the abyss.

###

“Miss Swan!” She screeched as they picked themselves up off the floor again. “Will you stop touching me!”

“What?” Emma said, grimacing as she stood on the inky, glowing floor.

“Every time you touch me we end up here!” Regina waved her arm about frantically. With a frustrated sigh, Regina shook her head at the exasperating woman before taking note of her outfit. The black tank top she had worn down the mine shaft was dusty and dirt clung to her arms. Focusing on the gold ring hanging from a chain around Emma’s neck, Regina said, quietly, “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For rescuing Henry.”

“Yeah, well, _Mayor_ Mills doesn’t seem to agree with you.”

“Of course she … I do!”

“Oh, really? So you make a habit of thanking someone for saving their son by dismissing them to attend to crowd control? Nice. You’re a piece of work lady.”

“Miss Swan, I …” Emma turned away from her and took a couple of furious steps into the darkness.

“You what?” She snapped when she turned back. “Does it make you feel good to manipulate people? To _beg_ for their help, to make someone actually _care_ for you? Does it get you off to watch the tentative trust you create turn into a pile of horse shit the moment you decide you don’t need them anymore?”

“How dare you!”

Emma closed the space between them with startling speed causing Regina to suck in a sharp intake of breath. “How dare I what? How dare I save our son? How dare I let myself get sucked in by your tears and pleading?” Emma panted angrily before her eyes filled with tears. Regina felt her skin prickle at the sudden change of voice Emma used next. It was low, and it was desolate. “We nearly lost him, Regina. The lift fell and I thought I was going to lose him. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.” Emma’s breath hitched and she turned from Regina again.

Regina’s heart plummeted at the distressing notion of how finely balanced her son’s life had been. The tone in Emma’s voice and the dejected slump of her shoulders told her just how affected she was.

“Em—Miss Swan,” Regina said throatily, reaching out to touch the woman on the shoulder. She stopped herself, leaving her hand hanging awkwardly in mid-air. She didn’t know how to console people. Wrenching her hand back to her side, she scowled to herself. Why on earth was she trying to console this woman? Clenching her hands into tight fists, she supressed the compassion and empathy threatening to bloom inside her.

Silence descended on them like the darkness. “This place …” Regina started, finding a need to fill the quiet void. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered or heard of.”

“Me either,” Emma said, smiling as Regina caught her eye.

With a tisk, Regina shook her head and continued. “Do you have any memories of this place when we return?”

Emma shook her head.

Regina creased her forehead as she continued to think. “We come here, to this …”

“Black hole.”

“… black hole, every time we touch.” Regina began shaking her head vigorously.

“Well, hell. _Sorry_ ,” Emma said petulantly as she misinterpreted Regina’s annoyance.

“Pardon?”

“For touching you. I wish I knew how much you hated it.”

“I don’t hate it at all,” Regina said defensively. Then, realising how that sounded, and feeling the heat rush to her face as Emma crooked an eyebrow at her, she added, “I’d rather you maintain your own personal space, dear, but your touch is hardly worth get worked up about.”

Emma grinned.

Huffing out a breath, Regina ignored the woman and continued her verbal musing. “So, once we touch, we come to this black hole for a purpose I can’t fathom.” Regina looked to her wrist and bit her bottom lip. The presence of a magical link to the Saviour concerned her. Rumple, no doubt, knew exactly what was going on, and her inability to carry her memories back to Storybrooke meant she was unlikely to find answers here. Sighing, she rolled her neck on her shoulders and wished for enlightenment. Then she yelped. “Miss Swan!”

Emma, who was behind her held her hands up innocently. “Sorry, you looked tense.”

“That is hardly a reason to begin accosting me.”

“Accosting? It’s a neck massage, Regina. I doubt a great and powerful evil witch like you can be defeated with a massage.”

Regina narrowed her eyes. “Stop touching me.”

Emma smirked. “Stop getting so worked up about it.”

“I’m—” Regina growled. “Maintain your personal space, Miss Swan, or I will—”

“Destroy me? Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying.”

Regina growled, then Emma laughed. A full, hearty sound of utter amusement, which threw Regina’s concentration at conjuring a fireball to end Emma’s existence.

“Maintain my personal space?” Emma bent over and continued to howl with laughter. “That … has to … be … the most ridiculous … thing … I’ve heard!” Emma stuttered through her laughter. “Oh, Regina,” she said when she calmed down. “That’s the best joke I’ve ever heard.”

Regina, who had been steadily growing more and more annoyed, snapped, “What the hell is wrong with you!” Regina stiffened and gasped as Emma stepped right against her in another unexpected move.

“Personal space isn’t something you and I bother with, or haven’t you noticed? In fact,” Emma said, stepping impossibly closer. “Isn’t this where you were when you begged me to bring Henry back to you.”

Regina swallowed thickly and said with a voice that cracked in betrayal, “Queens don’t beg.”

Emma cocked her head.

“I demand. I order, and the peasants …” Regina looked Emma up and down from her restricted angle. “ _Obey_.”

Emma made a disbelieving humming noise in the back of her throat, and before they had a chance to argue further, the ground disappeared below them and with a flash, and a blink they were back in Storybrooke. Emma looking sadly on as Regina walked away with their son through the mine site.

 


	3. the Sherriff squabble

“You hit me!” Emma screamed at Regina the next time they were dumped into the black hole.

“You stole my—you stole Graham!” Regina screamed back before slapping Emma again for good measure.

Wide-eyed with shock, Emma recovered with a growl and launched herself at Regina, tackling the woman to the ground and firmly pinning her hands above her head. “Stop hitting me!”

“Stop destroying my life!”

As Emma was about to answer her, her eyes began to stir in thought. “You have Graham’s heart in that crypt. Graham is remembering.”

“He—what! How!” Regina was unable to hide the panic in her voice. “What did you do!”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You must have, _you’re_ the one changing everything.”

Emma let Regina go with a huff and sat beside her. “He kissed me.”

“Excuse me!”

“He kissed me a few nights ago and seemed to … freak out a little.” Turning and grasping Regina’s arm, Emma added, “ _He_ kissed me, _not_ the other way around. I didn’t expect it.”

“What do I care who initiated your passion-fest!” Regina sat up and glared at Emma. “ _Freaked_ out, how?”

“Well, I’d like to think I wasn’t that terrible at kissing, so I think it was something else. I’ve no idea what. He’s been saying he’s had these flashbacks, these dreams about wolves.”

Regina sighed and slumped. “He’s remembering. Obviously that kiss sparked it.”

“Oh.”

Before Emma could elaborate, the ground disappeared from beneath them and the women found themselves back at the darkened cemetery.

###

Regina, standing over Emma triumphantly after hitting her across the jaw, watched on as Emma leapt from the ground and delivered her own punch.

###

“You hit me!” Regina shouted at Emma as they once again returned to the black hole.

“You deserved it!”

Regina narrowed her eyes at the defiance on Emma’s face and shook her head, turning away. “This is getting tiresome,” she said as she looked back out into the darkness.

“Yeah.” After a moment of silence, Emma asked, “Regina, what would happen if we kissed?”

Spinning on the spot with such momentum that she felt dizzy, Regina snapped, “What!”

“Well, you already remember who you are, don’t you? So … well … what would happen?”

Shaking her head, Regina answered, “I don’t follow, dear, but I assure my proclivities do not extend to lying with my enemies.”

“I’m not asking you to sleep with me. _God_ , Regina.”

Clearing her throat, Regina said, “But you are asking for me to agree to provide you with an intimate act. I have no interest in playing along with your perversions.”

“Kissing is _not_ a perversion.”

“Kissing me is, or haven’t you noticed that not only am I a woman, but I’m also the woman that stole your childhood and cursed everyone that would have cared for you.”

“First, I’m going to ignore your homophobia. It’s archaic.”

“I’m not homophobic.”

“Then what was all the ‘ _I’m a woman_ ’ stuff about?”

“You have a child.”

“So?”

“So one could quite rightly assume you lie with men.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I don’t _lie_ with anyone. Not for a long time.”

Regina sneered, intensely uncomfortable with discussing anything to do with Emma’s sexual preferences. 

Emma huffed and shook her head. “Look … regardless of who I … of … _God!_ Graham remembered his life after he kissed me. Would we remember _this_ place if I kissed you?”

“I …” Regina faltered. It was an absurd theory, but remembering this black hole when they returned to Storybrooke would go a long way in figuring out what was happening to them. “I don’t know.”

The ground disappeared beneath the women as they stared at each other, lost in thought.

###

Standing herself upright after dropping her father’s roses, Regina turned to find Emma coming at her. The moment the woman gripped her arms and began to direct them to the mausoleum, they once again plummeted into the darkness.

###

“Dammit!” Emma grumbled as she picked herself up from the glowing orange floor. “How do you keep doing that?”

“What, dear? You were the one assaulting _me_.”

“No,” Emma waved her hand up and down at Regina’s body. “That. You land softly on your feet, where I constantly smack into this weird freaking floor like a sack of potatoes.”

“It’s called poise, dear. You possess none.”

“Poise, my arse,” Emma muttered.

“Speak up, dear, your infantile muttering is difficult enough to understand without you mumbling.”

“My … damn you, Regina. Get off your high and mighty horse already.”

“What purpose would that serve?”

“Well, for starters, you may manage to stop pushing people who care for you away.”

“Meaning what, Miss Swan?”

“Can’t you see? You hold onto people so tightly, they have no room to breathe. I get that love doesn’t come easily to you, Regina, but you need to trust sometimes too.”

“Trust?” Regina tipped back her head and cackled. “I trusted my son, Miss Swan, and look where that got me. He discarded the mother that raised him and searched for the one that tossed him away.”

“He cares for you.”

“I fail to see how, Miss Swan. Who cares for the Evil Queen, after all?” Regina managed to keep the tremble from her voice. The direction this conversation had taken was sitting uncomfortably within her. Emma’s next words furthered her discomfort.

“I care,” Emma said, reaching out a hand to touch her.

Regina hissed and stepped away from the woman. “Don’t be absurd. You’ve seen my heart, dear. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that understanding me is the same as caring.”

“What are you so afraid of?” Emma asked, reaching out again.

“Don’t _touch_ me!” Regina screamed, rage tickling the magic she could feel building inside her. Hot and yearning, the rage tried to plant itself in her blood. Emma scowled and shook her head, only increasing the frustrated fury. Regina shut her eyes against the urges beckoning to her. Heated blood easily cooled by giving into its seductive needs. Manifesting as a fireball in her hands, Regina opened her eyes, ready to unleash her anger.

 “What, the hell, is that!” Emma said, pointing to emphasise her words. Green eyes widened fearfully.

Turning around, Regina witnessed a solid wall of orange heading towards them and her rage dissipated in an instant. Without thought, she threw up a shield of magic moments before the wall hit. It felt like molten lava. The heat poured through the shield and warmed her skin. Crying out in discomfort, Regina dropped to the floor in an effort to make herself smaller and chanced a look behind her. Emma, without a shield was curled into a foetal position on the ground screaming and unprotected. Her skin seemed to boil and her clothes charred in the wake of the wave.

“Miss … Swan …” Regina spluttered through the blistering air and crawled across to her. With the slightest sigh of relief as Regina’s shield blocked out the worst of the heat, Emma reached out to her. Taking her hand without a thought, Regina nearly lost control of her magic as a boom and flash of light startled her. Watching with wide brown eyes, the shield she was maintaining solidified and extinguished all remnants of heat. Inside the protective bubble, the temperature regulated and cooled. “What …?” She mumbled and looked down to where Emma was clutching her hand with her eyes screwed tightly shut. Their cuffed wrists glowed brightly and pulses of light emanated in a steady stream from their hands. Delicate tendrils filtered across their skin, soothing the burns in their wake, and then it faded.

“Regina, what is this?” Emma asked as she opened her eyes to find her burns gone.

Regina exhaled in awe. “Magic.”

*****

Emma curled into a ball and shivered. Time passed slowly and the hours seem to tick away after the burning wave passed. Regina had refused to talk to the woman since uttering the word magic as she stood apart from Emma trying to piece the latest revelation together. Her breath left her body in puffs of steam and she felt her skin prickle in the vast cold, darkness. This place, whatever it was, seemed to be almost studying them. Or perhaps forcing the women to study each other, Regina thought wryly as she glanced down to Emma who was trembling visibly as she drew nonsense sketches with her finger in the orange embers that followed every touch.

Regina had felt Emma’s magic course through her the moment their skin had touched. Never knowing one could link magic, or never before thinking Emma _had_ magic, Regina very nearly dropped the shield protecting her from blistering the way Emma’s skin had. The pain Emma had felt as she slowly burned under the heat had accompanied the wave of peaceful magic Emma had passed through her; a pain that dissipated with surprising speed as their link healed Emma.

They had stayed frozen in place for what felt like hours as the fiery air rained down on them. Regina, able to pool Emma’s magical resources in with hers, shielded them with an ease she’d never experienced with her own magic. Standalone magic, it appeared, was hard. Emma’s magic combined with her own felt tranquil and effortless. Regina didn’t understand it. 

Which led her back to the start of her theory: someone, or something, was trying to bind them together. A fact that was obvious by the cuffs they wore. The other fact that they had shared memories through their hearts; the way Regina’s touch seemed to heal Emma; the way their magic protected them from the heat … it all pointed to them bonding in some fashion. Regina couldn’t stop the grimace forming on her face at the idea.

She was a woman of power in her own right. What person, or thing, had the right to force another upon her? What was it going to accomplish? Especially considering neither woman had the faintest idea about this place and its experiences when they were back in Storybrooke. As her thoughts progressed, she could feel the walls building around her heart. Ten years of Henry’s love had chipped away at the protective barriers she had erected out of necessity. Perhaps this experience was one big reminder to protect herself from _everyone_ … including Henry. Her love for him had weakened her. She was too exposed. She needed to defend herself from the heartbreak she could feel was coming.

“What already!” Emma cried out at Regina in exasperation.

Regina blinked. “Pardon, Miss Swan?”

“You’ve been glaring at me for the last ten minutes. What’s your deal?”

“I have not been _glaring_. I’m thinking.”

Emma made a face. “Well, I’d hate to see your glaring face then.”

Regina narrowed her eyes.

“Oh, look, there it is. Looks exactly the same as your thinking face.”

Regina snorted out a puff of air and turned her attention away from Emma. She hadn’t realised she had been staring.

“Why is it so cold?” Emma asked as she stood and walked over to Regina.

“I’m uncertain.”

“Is it just me, or have we been here for a really, really long time now?”

Regina nodded reluctantly. “It does appear that this is an extended stay.”

“Why? Do you think it’s because I grabbed you?”

Regina focused on Emma. “Grabbed me?”

“At the cemetery. After I punched you, I grabbed you by the shoulders. I was about to drag your sorry arse over to the grave and slam you against the wall.”

“Ever the barbarian,” Regina said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, you pissed me off.” Emma rubbed at her jaw where Regina hit her.

“As I recall, Miss Swan, _you_ stole Graham from me. I had every right to be angry. Your own fury obviously stems from your guilt. Live with it, dear.”

Emma shook her head. “Whatever,” she muttered under her breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

Fixing Emma with another glare, she found herself faced with a grin. “What now?” Regina snapped.

“Are you thinking again?”

Regina straightened her arms by her sides and clenched her fists. “You are impossible.”

“Oh, no, I’m just annoying. _You_ are the impossible one.”

“How do you figure that?”

Emma held out a hand and started listing her proof. “Lies to her son about being the Evil Queen. Manipulates me and all the townsfolk every chance you get. Refuses to let _anyone_ be happy, including yourself. Oh, and let’s not forget, cursed the world because you placed the blame on the wrong person.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Regina growled in a low, menacing voice.

“Oh, I believe I do. I’ve seen the movie, in case you’ve forgotten,” Emma said, glancing down at the place on Regina’s chest that held her heart.

Protectively, Regina covered her chest with her hand. 

“I get that Snow White … who is quite disturbingly my mother …” Emma added, her eyes losing focus. “Wow. My mum is a fairy tale character …” Emma trailed off and her eyes glazed over.

Regina snapped her fingers in front of Emma’s face when the pause lengthened. “Focus, Miss Swan.”

“Oh, right … I get that Snow White let a secret slip, but do you really believe your mother was that naïve to not already know about you and Daniel? I’ve seen what she’s like. I highly doubt she was ignorant of the love you had for Daniel. It’s a big thing to hide.”

“I … of course she didn’t know.”

“You know what I think?”

“Not particularly.” Regina sniffed haughtily.

Emma let an impudent smile form on her face. “Too bad, Your Majesty. I think that even if Snow White hadn’t told your mother, that you and Daniel would never have been able to escape for long. I can’t see mummy dearest letting you get away with eloping. She would have taken his heart no matter what Snow said.”

Regina shook her head. “No. Snow caused this! She ruined my life because she wanted a mother to love her, raise her. Daniel and I would have made it. I’m certain of it. Because of her, he died. I can never forgive her for that.”

“No, you’re wrong Regina. It’s because of your mother that he died.”

“Snow was the reason mother knew!” 

“She would have hunted you down and killed him anyway! Can’t you see that!”

“You don’t know that!” Regina screamed. “You don’t know!”

“Regina,” Emma said with a soft voice that startled her. “I’m sorry that he died, I can feel the pain of it,” she said, holding a hand over her own heart. “But, Regina, I can also see that your mother wouldn’t have let you be anything but Queen. Power was what she wanted for you. Love didn’t matter to her.”

Regina nodded slowly, looking to the ground and watching the glow around her feet. “Because love is weakness.” 

“No. It isn’t. She got that wrong.”

“No, she was right. If I hadn’t loved Daniel with all my heart, I would never have become this … this …” Regina straightened up and stared into Emma’s green eyes. “His loss weakened me. Power was the only thing that revived me. It kept me strong all these years.”

“No, wrong again. Power kept you isolated and lonely.”

Trying not to visibly flinch at Emma’s words, Regina clenched her jaw. If this woman thought she was going to make every action she’d taken since Daniel’s death worth nothing, that it was all based on foundations that were of no value, then she was mistaken. Daniel’s death was Snow’s fault. End of story. Emma was part of Snow’s happy ending and knowing this, Regina sneered. “Oh, no, dear. My power isolated _you_.”

Emma blinked at the turn of subject. 

“I lost my happy ending thanks to Snow White. In turn, _everyone_ lost theirs. _She_ is the reason we’re all cursed. That pure little girl I once rescued from a horse was nothing but a selfish, manipulative wretch that wanted to play happy families. She had no idea!”

“Regina, _you_ cursed everyone, not Snow White. You’re the one that gave up on your own happy ending, never realising you could search again. Don’t you see that?”

“I was forced into a marriage to someone nearly thirty years older than myself, who never got over his dead wife and ignored my wants and needs for years! _How_ exactly is that the path to happy, Miss Swan? My life didn’t start again until I ensured that his ended.”

“I’m pretty sure that having someone assassinated isn’t the ideal start to finding the happily ever after, but did you ever try looking?”

Regina lifted her chin and looked at Emma arrogantly. “Of course I did. What do you think the curse was about? My happy ending is watching them all suffer.”

“And are you happy?”

Regina averted her eyes from Emma’s and said to the dark, “Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“And I don’t care what you think, Miss Swan.” Regina spun and strode off into the darkness. Her progress tracked by the glowing orange footprints she left behind. As she stepped into the darkness, the air in the abyss chilled further and further. After what felt like hours, a frigid gust of wind began to race across the void.

“It’s snowing,” Emma observed through chattering teeth.

Regina jumped and spun on the spot.

“I followed you,” Emma said with a shrug.

Regina tore her gaze from Emma’s and eyed the falling snowflakes with every ounce of disdain she possessed. Sharing the darkness with an insufferable woman could only be made worse with the cold. She hated the cold. It reminded her too much of her heart. Its icy depth felt heavy in her chest. With a small scoff, she realised how much like her heart this darkness was. Eternal blackness with blasts of raging fire and freezing blizzards. The Evil Queen was a misnomer; Fire Queen or Ice Queen would have suited her better. Boiling anger and bitter cold.

“I d-don’t think you’ll be able t-to scoff it away,” Emma said beside her.

“That’s hardly what I was doing.”

“Sure. Want to snuggle?”

“Pardon me!” Regina cried, turning to face the woman.

“You know, snuggle. To keep warm.” Emma grinned, obviously enjoying unsettling her.

“Is that when you plan to inappropriately try and kiss me, Miss Swan?”

“Only if you think it’ll warm us up?”

“It’ll warm _you_ up when I throw a fireball at your head for attempting something so uncouth, that I can guarantee.”

“Promises, promises,” Emma chattered through her teeth. 

Regina resorted to shaking her head at the woman as she felt a hand snake around her waist. The instant warmth was welcome, and as much as she abhorred being touched, she found herself leaning into Emma’s body seeking the heat she could feel there. Looking down at the hand around her waist, Regina eyed Emma’s lightly glowing cuff. Tentatively laying a hand over Emma’s, a pleasant heat spread up their arms and through their bodies. 

“Oh!” Emma said, noticing the bracelets increasing light.

“It did that before,” Regina said, watching the cuff glow distractedly, preferring to focus on how Emma’s fingers wrapped over her own. 

“It did? When?”

“In the fire storm. It gave me power to make the shield and it soothed your burns.”

After staring at the phenomenon for a moment, Emma asked, “Want to sit down?”

“I refuse to sit on this floor, Miss Swan.”

“So magic up a sofa.”

Regina shook her head and peered up at the woman, whose face was inches away from her own. She quickly turned away as a warm breath caressed her skin. “Magic doesn’t work like that,” she said flatly.

“I want to be like Samantha.”

Despite herself, Regina looked back at Emma. “Who?”

“You know, the Bewitched lady. She’d wriggle her nose and anything she wanted happened.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “That’s absurd.”

“Occasionally she’d click her fingers. Like this.” Emma clicked her fingers and to the utter shock to both women, a deep maroon sofa appeared in front of them. Regina and Emma jumped apart at its sudden appearance. “What the hell!”

Regina, unable to form a coherent sentence, remained silent and stared at the impossible couch. As Emma sat herself into the comfortable-looking furniture, she found her voice. “ _You_ can do magic!”

“Umm … yes? See.” Emma patted the chair. “Come and sit down. I’m cold.”

Regina had also noticed the bitter chill settling in on her when Emma and herself parted. Unwilling to believe this was real, Regina stuck a toe out and prodded the couch with it. 

“You’re waiting for it to disappear, aren’t you?”

Caught in her hesitation, Regina answered, “Well … yes.”

“Okay, and while you do that, can you come and sit with me?” Emma patted the seat again.

With a sniff, Regina sat herself down, her rigid posture a testament to years spent as Queen. Emma shuffled across to her closing the gap the queen had left. Their hips and thighs pressed together, however the warmth didn’t seem to grow as it did before.

Emma held out her hand as she began to shiver again and a few flakes of snow settled in her palm. “Regina?” she asked as the woman stared down at the offering. With a heavy sigh, she took Emma’s hand and the heat was instantaneous. The snowflakes that had settled on them and the sofa disappeared, and those that still fell, drifting across them to the floor.

“For what it’s worth, I get it, you know?” Emma said.

“Get what, dear?”

“You.”

Regina turned her head to the woman slouched comfortably against the chair. Her sitting style explained her poor posture. “Me?” she inquired.

“Heart break is … well, shitty.”

“Eloquently put, as usual, dear.”

“It broke you, didn’t it?”

Regina sat in silence as she nodded to the darkness in front of her. 

“There’s still good in you, Regina. You can come back from this.”

“What makes you think I want to, Miss Swan.”

Emma sat up and leaned her elbows on her knees to get a better look at Regina’s face. “Oh, I think you do. And you also know why.”

Regina sighed. “Henry.”

“Henry.” Emma moved her gaze from Regina’s and looked instead into the darkness. “He’s hurt you hasn’t he? With all this Evil Queen stuff.”

Regina didn’t reply but her jaw worked as her teeth clenched.

“Can I … will you show me?”

“Show you what, dear?”

“Your pain.”

Regina snapped her attention to Emma. “If you think I’m going to allow you to reach into my chest and take my heart, then think again, Miss Swan.”

“I have no intentions of _taking_ it. I just thought … you know what, forget it.” Emma slumped back into the chair.

After a long silence, Regina felt Emma jump as she said, “Yes, he has hurt me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Miss Swan,” Regina growled dangerously. 

“What? Oh … the apology?” Emma shrugged. “Too bad, I am sorry.”

“Operation Cobra,” Regina said with a wince. “It sounds … slippery.”

“I think that’s Henry’s point. He’s a smart kid. And a brave one. He’s going after the Evil Queen who also happens to be the mother that he loves. I can’t imagine that’s been easy.”

“Imagine what it feels like to have a child you raised in a loving home turn on you and declare you evil and replace you with another woman. That, Miss Swan, is not easy.”

“No, I guess not.”

Regina sighed and looked down at her lap. “It’s like … nothing counts.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ten years, Miss Swan. That’s how long I’ve loved him. Nursed him. Soothed him. Yes, I was strict, but I did that with the best of intentions to allow him to grow into a man that he could be proud to become. But now, none of that counts because he’s turned all his affection and attention onto a woman that has been in his life for a matter of seconds.”

“I’m s—”

“Don’t you _dare_ apologise!” Regina barked. “You have no right to be in his life. You signed that away when he was born!”

“I know,” Emma said, nodding sadly. “I know. And I don’t regret making that decision. You are the best thing for him, Regina. You’re his mother.”

“Stop mollifying me, dear. It’s irritating.”

“I … that’s not what I’m doing!”

Regina sighed wearily. “I don’t want to discuss this any further.” Emma, thankfully, took the hint and remained silent. Sitting side by side in the blizzard around them, time passed and hearing a soft snore, Regina looked around, surprised to see Emma fast asleep. Her head had rolled forward to her chest at an angle that looked uncomfortable.

“Miss Swan?” Regina asked, nudging the woman.

“Mmm …?” came the nonsensical response. Emma shifted in her sleep and lay herself down across the sofa beside her; her head resting on the arm of the chair. The movement had stretched Regina’s arm along the cushions.

“Really …” she muttered to herself. If possible, Emma looked more uncomfortable than she did before. Standing, Regina knocked at Emma’s legs with her foot to encourage the woman to stretch them along the two-seater couch. She did this, she thought to herself, to avoid any complaining that was bound to come from the woman when she awoke with a sore neck and back. Of course, now she was left standing awkwardly and Emma was lying peacefully. Now what was she going to do? Going over her options, a yawn overcame her and she frowned, realising that this stint in the black hole had lasted a significant period of time. It felt like days since they had been thrown down here spitting fire at one another. With a sigh, she sat back down on what piece of cushion was left on the couch. It wasn’t much.

Hours later, her back began to spasm and a dull thud spread up through her neck into her head. Maintaining her rigid posture used to be a skill she excelled at. Twenty-eight years had softened her. Looking enviously at the woman lying on the sofa as tiredness crept up on her rapidly, Regina contemplated resting also. Sneering at the idea of lying beside Emma, she reluctantly admitted there was little other choice. Letting go of Emma’s hand, she wriggled and lengthened herself along the space that was available and felt the bitter cold descend on them again. With a shiver, Emma wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into a tight embrace. It took all of Regina’s willpower not to launch herself off the couch at the intimate act. Her frost-bitten skin kept her in place. Just. But the warmth wasn’t enough until Regina sought Emma’s hand, clutching at it as the air once again heated around them. With a frustrated sigh at how Emma’s touch was what warranted her comfort, she allowed her eyes to close and relaxed into the cushions below her. The comfort and peace radiating from Emma was another puzzle she refused to contemplate.

*****

Waking up refreshed with a bright warm light piercing the darkness in a ring around the chair was a disorientating feeling. Regina’s eyes tried to focus on the source of the light, but instead had to be content at squinting into the darkness beyond it. What grounded her, however, was the steady puff of warm air caressing the back of her neck; the strong but yielding arms holding her close; the weight of a leg tangled between her own. It was those sensations that prevented her from panicking in her first waking instances. Of course, the intimacy of the situation sparked off a whole new panic. _This shouldn’t feel comfortable_ , Regina scolded herself as she extracted herself from Emma’s embrace. Doing so had her tumbling from her precarious position on the couch, and as she hit the floor, she winced at the sudden shoot of pain in her kneecaps.

“Regina?” Emma said groggily from behind her.

“Yes, dear?” she said, clearing her throat at her foolish panic.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I am.”

Emma chuckled to herself before she yawned and stretched as she sat up on the couch, her feet hitting the floor and green eyes squinting into the light. “What is that?” she asked.

“I’m as clueless as you are,” Regina offered, chuckling to herself ruefully. Picking herself up off the floor, Regina looked up into the light. Its source was indefinable.

Emma frowned and chose to ignore her. “How long have we been here now?”

“That, Miss Swan, is a very good question.” She looked at her watch futilely. It was still frozen on the time they had entered the black hole the previous evening. Well, she could only assume it was now the previous evening. The moment Emma had grabbed her by both shoulders had instigated this. “You said you planned to throw me against the wall, didn’t you?” Regina asked as the puzzle pieces began to slot into place.

“Huh?”

“The fight we were … _are_ having. You were pushing me.”

“Yes. To the crypt thing.”

Regina fell silent thinking about all the instances before this one.

“What are you thinking?”

“All the other occasions where we have made contact have been fleeting, correct?” Regina asked.

Emma frowned in thought. “Yeah. Why?”

“Well, as you are currently manhandling me to no doubt break something as you slam me up against a solid wall, our … contact … is significantly longer.”

“So we’re stuck here for, what? Days?”

“I have no idea, but it certainly appears so.”

“And we do what? Wait around for more walls of lava? Blizzards?” Emma cried as she stood up.

“Calm yourself, dear. I’m certain a fit of hysterics won’t help our situation.”

Emma rubbed a hand across her face. “Look, Regina, this is all … it’s a lot to take in.”

“Trust me, I’ve been in worse situations.”

Emma scoffed then stiffened as Regina’s memories that were branded on her heart reminded her of some of the woman’s darkest hours. “Regina,” Emma said with a startling tenderness as she reached out and touched the woman’s arm.

Stiffening as she waited for another unwanted apology for all the evil in her life, Emma surprised her and said, “You’ll figure this out. I trust you.”

“You … trust me?” Regina frowned at the woman.

Emma shrugged. “ _Here_ , I do. I know you in this place.”

Regina studied her and once again wished she knew what the woman was thinking. Or why the woman that should be wild with anger for the life she had stolen away the moment Emma’s parents were forced to send her away was so calm and accepting of her lot in life. “You don’t trust me in Storybrooke?” 

“I don’t really know the Mayor. Not as well. She’s … you’re scared in Storybrooke.”

“Scared? Come, dear, exaggeration is not becoming.” Regina let out a false laugh and flicked the hair from her face.

“You’re scared your curse is going to break. You’re scared of me even though you don’t know who I am yet, and what you feel for Henry terrifies you. You’re so paranoid that your world is going to crumble around you, that you overreact and lash out before you need to.”

“I lash out because I _have_ to. People have been coming after me all my life, Miss Swan, or have you conveniently forgotten that?” Regina growled glancing significantly at Emma’s heart.

“No, I haven’t forgotten. But Storybrooke is safe for you, don’t you realise that? No one is coming after you there.”

“ _You_ are.”

The light above them began to fade.

“No, I’m not. Though …”

Regina narrowed her eyes. “Though?”

“I’m apparently going to break your curse.”

“I know, dear. Brings us full circle, don’t you think? I’m not safe anywhere.” 

The light extinguished itself.

Regina watched as Emma looked around into the sudden darkness, a frown crossing her face as she shook her head at the void.

“You’re safe with me. I want you to always feel safe with me,” Emma said when she looked back at her. The sincerity in her eyes was matched by the intensity of that gaze. 

Regina heard herself gasp. “Why?”

“Why not,” Emma said, shrugging her shoulders as if her offer was the most casual of assumptions to grant.

She was finding it difficult to understand this woman. She didn’t live up to the depiction that should have been True Love’s product in Regina’s mind. She should have stood on the side of all things good and declare her unfit for just about everything. Emma Swan was nothing but a complicated contradiction. She was as broken as Regina was, however, she constantly kept her head above water. All she ever felt was that she’d spent her life drowning and hoping against hope that someone would pull her from the water. She never expected Emma Swan, The Saviour, to be the one offering that solace. Like Henry, she was sure the curse-breaker would want triumphant victory and make the Evil Queen fall to her feet in defeat. After their experiences in this darkness, she couldn’t help but see Emma as an ally, and not the enemy she should be.

Oh, how Regina wished for an insight on this … her nemesis. The moment the thought crossed her mind, she witnessed Emma being snatched from the ground. 

“Regina!”

Bolts of light appeared from nowhere and wrenched Emma into the air. Manacles that looked and crackled like lightning attached themselves to Emma’s wrists, neck, elbows, knees and ankles. Shafts of the zapping light pierced each finger and toe before one snaked around her waist. The moment the ropes stopped attaching themselves to Emma, she screamed. A high-pitched, terrible scream.

Flinching and hissing, Regina felt the bracelet connecting her to Emma burn and sear into her wrist. She scrambled to get the thing off but found herself unable to even touch the burning magic. Swallowing back the pain from years of practice, she focused instead on the woman held hostage above her.

“Miss Swan!” Regina heard herself shouting over the ghastly noise erupting from the woman. Closing the distance, she tried shouting again, “Emma!” 

Emma continued to scream. Her eyes clamped shut and her back arched dangerously. 

Reaching out with her magic, Regina tried to cast away the shackles binding Emma in its painful grip. Nothing seemed to work. Time didn’t seem to end as curse after curse struck the ropes without inflicting a dent of damage. Collapsing to her knees, Regina watched on as Emma’s screams wilted away to whimpers and soon, unconscious silence and faint crackling was the only company she had.

Suddenly, the screams began to reverberate around in her head and flashes of light struck her mind. Feeling as though she was being electrocuted, she felt a curiously familiar conscience touch her in her pain. Insight and feelings from a foreign mind melded with her own and the agony it brought with it was unbearable. Without warning, the pain ceased and Regina slumped to the floor in a helpless heap and covered her ears. The screams had been awful, and while they had ceased long ago, the echo of them seemed to echo in her mind. It was then she realised it was her that was now screaming into the darkness. With a choke, she swallowed back the cries and tried to find her breath.

The torture was absurd and had come from nowhere. The blackness that greeted them each trip into the hole had almost begun to feel safe, impenetrable by anything but themselves. Regina cursed herself for getting so relaxed in this never-ending space. Now, not only had a wall of heat attempted to incinerate them, and a blizzard to freeze them, but Emma had been tortured. Perhaps then she could have seen this pain coming, but even then, did she have a chance at stopping it? She looked up at Emma above her, still being held by the shackles of light.

“Please … stop this,” Regina said to the emptiness around them.

As suddenly as it had started, the ropes vanished and Emma fell with a sickening thump in front of her.

“Emma!” Regina whispered hoarsely. Clearing her throat and wondering why it felt so raw, she carefully straightened Emma’s limbs from the knots they had become and brushed the hair from the woman’s face. “Miss Swan?” Leaning forward, her brown locks fell into her own eyes, and brushing them away quickly, Regina noticed the dampness on her cheeks. She had been crying? For Emma?

Shuffling away from the prone woman, Regina created a little distance and eyed the woman carefully. _I am the Evil Queen_ , she reminded herself. _Let’s not get carried away now_. Drying her cheeks, Regina spent an indefinable amount of time waiting for Emma to rouse. Nervous brown eyes cast themselves to the woman’s chest on the odd occasion to assure herself that she was still breathing. Each time, relief flooded her to find she was. After all, if Emma was going to die, she’d rather it be at her hands, not at some unknown torturous entity. Which led her back to the darkness. What was this place? Why had they been brought here? What purpose did this serve? And who benefited from it?

Her hand idly touched the raw, blistering burn marks on her left wrist. She looked along the thin chain of light connecting her to Emma. Reaching out, she touched the identical burn marks on Emma’s right wrist. The moment her fingers touched Emma’s skin, the bracelet glowed and seemed to move in a watery trick of light. Regina gasped and snatched her hand back, noticing as she did so, that the glow stopped, but her burn marks had eased in their ache.

Swallowing, and with a quick glance up at Emma’s unconscious face, Regina took Emma’s hand in hers and watched as the cuffs glowed and a soothing warmth penetrated her skin. Tendrils of light flickered around the scar on her wrist and calmed the tender skin. The tendrils did the same for Emma before shooting up her arm and across the rest of her body with astounding speed. Flinching at the phenomenon, Regina steadily maintained contact with Emma and watched as the woman tensed, then relaxed with a sigh. As abruptly as it started, the tendrils vanished and the bracelet dulled.

A ragged breath caught her attention, and dropping Emma’s hand, she looked up and saw green eyes blinking open. “Regina? Wha…? What happened?”

Regina shook her head and shrugged. Supressing a relieved smile at seeing Emma return to consciousness, she said, “How do you feel?”

“Weird. Relaxed.

“Relaxed?” Regina questioned, and then felt an odd sensation wash through her and she nodded. She felt the woman’s peace. Still, she shook her head. “Relaxed, after that?” Regina said, pointing to the air.

“Like I said … weird.”

“Did you … feel anything? Do you have any idea why it was happening to you?”

“All I felt was pain. Like I was being burned from the inside out. It …” Emma cast her eyes into the darkness and blinked away the tears gathering in her eyes. “It was …” Emma stopped with a shudder.

That curious sensation pulsed in her blood again. She felt Emma’s experiences, understood the words Emma couldn’t say. “It was … hard … to watch,” Regina said, reaching over and touching the woman’s forearm. The bracelet on her wrist glowed a little.

Emma gave Regina a small smile at a truth she knew must have been difficult to admit.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, claiming Regina’s hand in her own.

“Stop apologising.”

Emma looked to the bracelets and frowned. “These glow whenever we touch?”

“No,” Regina said, watching the cuff glow distractedly, preferring to focus on how Emma’s fingers wrapped over her own.

“No?”

“They only seem to glow in that fashion when our cuffed hands touch.” Regina looked at the play of light around the thin ropes. “They’re powerful, whatever they are. When you were unconscious, I sat here for a while trying to wake you up and nothing seemed to work. I eventually touched your hand and the bracelets glowed like that and seemed to heal us,” she said.

“Us? What do you mean us?”

Regina removed her hand from Emma’s grasp and stood as she said, “I said _you_ , dear.”

“No you didn’t. Did you get hurt?” Emma tried to pull herself from the floor and winced with the effort. 

“Stay still!” Regina puffed out an exasperated air, realising the woman was more concerned about her than her own traumatic experiences.

“I will when you tell me how you were hurt.”

Deciding it was futile to hide the truth, and unwilling to watch the woman put herself through further pain, Regina confessed. “As you were being held by the ropes, my cuff burnt me. A minor and inconvenient injury. Nothing to concern yourself with.”

Emma took hold of Regina’s cuffed wrist and turned it over looking for signs of injury. 

Regina snatched it away. “Has your hearing been damaged, Miss Swan? I said I’m fine.”

Emma let out a huff of air and shook her head. “It’s okay to let someone help you, it doesn’t make you weak.”

“Weak! I’m not—” Regina stopped when Emma raised an eyebrow. With a low growl, she said slowly as to emphasise her point, “I am _not_ weak.”

“I know. Prove it.” Emma held out her hand.

“I will do no such thing.”

_Stop fighting me, Regina._

“I’m not—oh!” Regina gasped with surprise as Emma looked back at her a little startled.

“Oh?” Emma asked.

“You—I heard …” _Why did that just happen?_ She thought to herself. Regina looked down at the floor as she considered her earlier theory about how alike she and the darkness were. She remembered her need to understand Emma before the lightning ropes trapped her, and she couldn’t deny that the torture had stopped when she requested it aloud.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

Regina rubbed her wrist at the memory of Emma being tortured. Emma’s gaze followed the movement. She could feel the concern emanating from Emma’s thoughts. Pre-empting her, Regina said, “It’s okay, dear.”

“Regina, what’s going on?” Emma’s face looked confused and bordering on anxious. 

“I think I know what’s happening,” Regina said as she thought back to the events that had occurred in the void. The fire … she had been angry. So very angry. The ice … she was trying to shut herself off, to protect herself, and to be cold and distant. The light that welcomed them when they awoke … she had felt content.

Regina felt it as Emma’s understanding caught up. The enlightenment was unnerving. 

“What’s been happening … it’s … when you’re emotional,” Emma said, echoing the words that rang in Regina’s head a fraction of a moment beforehand.

“You,” Emma said.

Regina nodded. Knowing what was coming next.

“You’re doing this?”

“I … think so.”

 _You tortured me!_ Regina cringed, waiting for Emma to voice that thought. Instead, she surprised her and asked, “Where are we, Regina?”

Regina shook her head. Her theory was absurd. There was no way … but still …

“Regina, please.” Emma reached across, holding Regina’s hand in her own, the cuffs shimmering and glowing. “Where are we?”

Regina took a large, delaying breath before she uttered her answered softly. “We’re inside my heart.”

 


	4. the aftermath from the grave

 

“Well, this is a little awkward,” Emma mumbled as she sat in the corner of the couch, watching Regina pace, creating a steady line of orange embers on the floor.

“Awkward?” Regina said, coming to a halt.

“We’re in your _heart_! It’s … awkward.”

“It’s a simple theory, Miss Swan.”

“What’s with the glowing floor?” Emma asked, pointing to the line in Regina’s wake.

Regina looked at it distractedly. 

“And why is it so dark?”

“That, Miss Swan, is because my heart is black. Enacting the curse left me with this, an emptiness, a darkness I can never come back from.”

“And being the Evil Queen—”

“Means this,” Regina said, waving an arm to the void around them.

“But … this morning, or what I think was morning … the light. What was it?”

“I’m uncertain,” Regina said, biting on her lower lip. It had been the question she had been trying to answer as she paced the floor.

“What were you feeling when you woke up?” Emma asked perceptively.

Regina straightened her back and resumed her pacing. There was no way she was going to verbalise the peace she had felt as she lay beside Emma.

“Regina?” Emma asked, standing from the couch. 

“I don’t know what it was,” she snapped at the questioning woman.

“I think I do,” Emma said, stepping in front of Regina and halting her progress. “You felt happy, comfortable, didn’t you?”

“What on earth gave you _that_ impression?”

“The light … it was warm and peaceful. If your emotions run this place, then you must have felt the same way.”

“I felt no such thing, Miss Swan.”

“But …” Emma screwed up her face, soon widening it as she understood Regina’s refusal to admit her feelings. “You felt comfortable in my arms, didn’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You served no other purpose than to keep the bitter cold off as we slept. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it was anything beyond necessity, dear.”

Emma reached up and cupped Regina’s cheek boldly.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Regina screeched as she swatted it away.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Regina took a step back.

“What if it helps?”

“Helps what, exactly? I assure you it’ll do nothing but fulfil whatever fantasy you have running through your head. Always liked the bad boys, didn’t you? Apparently you like the bad _girls_ , too,” Regina said.

“Hey! That’s not fair!”

“No? So you’re trying to tell me you _don’t_ have a habit of sleeping with the wrong people? To be frank, I’m surprised your sultry interludes haven’t resulted in more unwanted children. Luck prevailed, Miss Swan.”

Emma slapped Regina firmly across the cheek, making her stumble back with shock. _Where had that come from?_

“Shut up!” Emma screamed in her face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Oh, but I do,” Regina said, smiling through the burning sting under the hand on her cheek. Blinking back the tears the slap incurred, Regina continued, “Don’t forget, dear, I’ve seen your heart, too. You’re a woman with zero self-esteem who runs when things get too hard or too comfortable. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you’re still in Storybrooke.”

“I’m there for Henry,” Emma said, her jaw stiff as she obviously tried to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. _Please, Regina, don’t do this …_

Regina ignored the pleas to stop as Emma’s thoughts sounded in her mind as she continued her taunts. “For how long? What will be your breaking point? Will it be when Henry relies on you the most? When you admit to yourself that you’re not ready to be a mother to him? When you realise you can’t handle being wanted, needed, loved? What will it be, Miss Swan? At what point are you going to break my son’s heart?”

“Shut up,” Emma said with a defeated whisper.

Regina leaned in, enjoying how the woman flinched away from her. “Don’t want to kiss me anymore, dear? Pity. It appears you can’t commit to anything.” Regina snickered harshly at Emma’s discomfort and gasped in shock as the woman she was taunting looked at her dangerously before capturing her head in her hands and possessing her lips with crushing force.

The kiss was furious and angry and nothing more than flesh bruising flesh. Neither woman moved as time lengthened around the possessive act. Eventually, Emma pulled back with a grunt and walked away leaving Regina to taste the saltiness of her tears on her lips. Bringing her fingertips to the taste of Emma’s tears, a wash of puzzlement struck her.

She felt inexplicably bad for pushing Emma so far. She wished she could take back her harsh words. The moment that thought struck her, she physically jolted. _Where the hell was the sudden conscience coming from?_ Regina questioned moments before the ground began to tremble and shift.

“Regina?” Emma called back to her in fright. “What are you doing?”

“I … I don’t know,” Regina answered honestly as she tried to keep her feet on the shuddering floor. “What have you done, Miss Swan!” Regina snapped.

“Me? This isn’t _my_ heart, remember? It’s all about you,” Emma said as she walked haphazardly back to Regina.

“You kissed _me_ , Miss Swan, you started this!”

Light pierced the cracks in the floor blinding them both. “Regina?” Emma called as she stumbled.

Reaching out a hand, Regina found Emma’s flailing limbs and tugged her closer. Crashing together, they fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, Regina feeling the air being pushed out of her lungs as Emma’s weight landed on her. A bubble of light encased them and stilled the floor below.

“What are you feeling?” Emma asked, her voice high-pitched in panic.

“I don’t know.” Regina tried to pinpoint the emotions raging in her. She felt regret. She regretted her taunts at Emma. Remorse didn’t sit well with her. It was confusing, like she couldn’t find her balance. Shutting her eyes against the unfamiliar sensations, she concentrated on something else, _anything_ else. The only thought she found purchase with was the weight of Emma above her. The hands they had locked together as their cuffs glowed and created the bubble. She gasped in shock at the feel of a kiss to her cheek. Snapping her eyes open, she looked for answers in those green eyes. Again, she instinctively knew what Emma was about to say.

“It’s okay. I forgive you.”

“For what?” Regina tried to bite out, but the fury wasn’t there. Nothing but hoarseness and undeniable weakness could be found in her voice. The idea of being feeble at the mercy of Emma’s words itched uncomfortably at her chest.

“For everything.”

Clenching her jaw, Regina mustered her cold persona and invited its familiar presence. “Get off me, Miss Swan,” she snapped with a satisfactory harshness, and welcoming the ability to breathe deeply again.

Emma, obviously offended by Regina’s tone, said nothing, and instead pulled the woman to her feet, never once letting go of her hand. Side by side, they watched the carnage outside the bubble as the ground shifted, tilted, cracked and burned. 

It was the perfect representation of her emotional state. Chaotic. The need for love, warmth had become an irritating thorn in her side since the day Daniel had been ripped from her. Every step she had taken since that fateful night had been designed to distance herself from such pain finding her again. But no matter how far she left the need for love behind, it continued to prickle at her skin. Henry. Love. The desire to feel needed, wanted. It all ached inside her whether she wanted it to or not. The Evil Queen had provided a mask for this yearning, but like all masks, it would slip and falter. Snow herself had skewed the veil on more than one occasion, but Henry had been the only one that had made her feel safe enough to lift it from her face. And now, he had declared her evil, unfeeling, just like everyone else had. The mask slowly gliding back down to cover the hurt she felt deep in her heart.

Regina felt a squeeze at her hand and sniffed, surprised to find a wet sound in her nose. Using her other hand, she cleared the tear tracks from her eyes and sniffed again. Embarrassed at her inability to control her emotions, she refused to turn her attention to Emma and studied the void quietly weeping. A reassuring squeeze of her hand keeping her company.

*****

It was sometime before her emotions calmed and the floor returned to its usual inky-black self. Emma let go of her hand and the cold air that seeped in made Regina miss the touch of the woman. The couch had been swallowed up by the floor, so Emma walked away and soon sat herself on the ground a generous distance away. Regina didn’t follow, but she studied the footprints left on the floor illuminating the path Emma had taken. Feeling the ache in her feet from their prolonged standing, she sighed and succumbed to sitting on the floor also. It felt undignified, but the relief in her feet was instantaneous.

The void remained still and silent as time expanded. Emma had long ago taken to lying on the floor and from Regina’s observation, looked to be fast asleep again. How long had they been here for now? One day? Two? More importantly, was this really her heart? It had felt familiar from the first experience. The darkness seemed to react to her emotional whims. Her heart had tortured Emma, she realised with a pang. Why? Why had she done that? Blinking, she remembered she wanted to understand the woman. Is that why she could almost hear Emma’s emotions? Her words? That horrible screaming had gained her an insight to the woman that was the Saviour.

Saviour.

Whose saviour was she? Surely she was never meant to save the Evil Queen, but those caught in her wrath. Emma was the key to breaking the curse. Maybe she was meant to break her as well. Regina looked over at the sleeping woman. _No_ , she said to herself, _I’m not going to break. I won’t let her break me. I refuse to let her in._

As her thoughts solidified, so did the air. A shimmer appeared between Emma and herself, a shimmer that looked like a wall that extended beyond sight in all directions. Walking over to it, Regina touched it, watching the ripples it created against it. Pushing harder, she found she couldn’t push through. She had separated herself from Emma. She had frozen her out.

 _Perfect_ , she thought to herself. The grin accompanying her thoughts fixed itself in place as she watched the sudden reappearance of snow on Emma’s side of the wall. The woman sat up and shivered, automatically looking over to Regina. Her eyes looked wild and flickered around in every direction. She looked … lost.

“Regina!” Emma shouted, her voice sounding panicked.

“Miss Swan?” Regina said.

“Regina?” Emma shouted again, looking around wildly.

“Miss Swan!” Regina’s grin faded as she realised Emma couldn’t see or hear her. This was unexpected. She had hoped to at least be able to taunt the woman. 

“R-Regina?” Emma said, her voice succumbing to the trembles of her cold body. She hunched over and rubbed vigorously at her arms. “R-Regina, where are you?”

Emma looked down at her wrist and followed the chain of faint light that left her bracelet. Regina stiffened as Emma walked over to her before she hit the solid, unseen wall. “What the hell?” Emma muttered as she stood. Tentatively, she put out a hand and met the barrier. “Regina?” Emma knocked on the wall. “Regina! P-Please, d-don’t hide from m-me,” Emma said in vain as she slumped against the wall, trying to make herself as small as she could to avoid the blizzard now gusting around her. “P-Please, R-Regina. Come back,” Emma said weakly. “Don’t freeze me out.”

Regina, who had been watching on in morbid fascination, turned away from the wall. She couldn’t face it.

The sound of Emma’s palm hitting the wall sounded behind her. “Regina. Please … please …” 

Regina felt an icy tremor hit her. Emma’s feelings. The woman was freezing. She could feel her own betrayal and abandonment clawing at Emma’s heart. Gritting her teeth, Regina ignored the emotion trying to well within her and walked away, putting as much distant between Emma and herself as possible.

 _Don’t leave me. Please … don’t. Please come back._ Emma’s thoughts ripped through Regina’s mind and she flinched against them. _She’s not going to break me_ , Regina thought firmly _._

Collapsing to the ground when she could no longer see or hear Emma, she felt a wave of exhaustion hit her. _Regina … please … come back … I need you …_ she felt the words hit her mind.

“No,” she said to herself hoarsely. “I can’t.” She pressed her hands against her ears as if it would stop the sound of Emma’s pleas. 

_Regina …_

Shivering with Emma’s cold, Regina stumbled and the ground rushed up at her. On both sides of the wall, the women passed out, falling into dark, cold dreams that kept them company until the ground disappeared beneath them and they faced each other against the wall in the cemetery.

###

“Emma?” Regina whispered, watching the glow in the other woman’s eyes as Emma held her against the stone.

“You left me,” Emma whispered back harshly. “I _needed_ you!” Emma pulled her hand back in a fist, ready to deliver another blow to Regina’s jaw when Graham pulled her away. Hitting the ground, she shook her head as a weird, icy shiver took hold of her, before looking back up at the woman against the crypt. The light in her eyes now gone.

“You know what,” Emma said quietly. “You’re not worth it.” Catching the sneer from the Mayor, Emma strode out of the cemetery, determined that Regina Mills was incapable of thinking about anyone but herself. 

 


	5. the fire

“Get off me!” Emma shouted as they returned to Regina’s heart. She shoved at the woman who had fallen on her in a similar fashion to the events that brought them back. Extracting herself from Regina, she turned away and crossed her arms.

“There’s a fire,” Regina said, realising how stupid that sounded.

“Really?” 

“Save the sarcasm, Miss Swan.” Regina took as step and winced. Her ankle.

“What?” Emma said at the noise.

“I think I injured myself as we were blown backwards from the door.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, Miss Swan,” Regina hissed.

“Vote … _Graham!_ Oh, my God! You killed him, didn’t you?” Emma took Regina by the lapels and shook her. “You took his life, crushed his heart!”

“What are you talking about?” Regina watched wide-eyed as Emma made a grab for her chest. Reacting with magic, Regina blasted Emma back from her before she could see the truth within. “Manners, Miss Swan. One doesn’t go around shoving their hands in people’s chests.”

“Like you give a shit, _Madame_ Mayor. I have no doubt that you took Graham’s life.” Emma shook her head as tears formed in her eyes. “He didn’t deserve it, he did nothing wrong!”

“Miss Swan, may I remind you that there is little to no magic in Storybrooke. What exactly do you think was going to happen to him when he realised exactly who he was. When he accepted he didn’t possess a heart?”

“You have plenty of hearts, Regina, I’m sure you haven’t decided to end anyone else’s life.”

“The curse protects those whose hearts I possess, which, I’m sure will come as a surprise to you, but is very few. I don’t make a habit of collecting hearts. I am _not_ my mother.”

“They still live! Why couldn’t Graham?”

“Try listening, dear, and you’d already have your answer. The curse protects them. Graham, thanks to you, was released from the curse. _You_ , Miss Swan, caused his death, not I.”

“No,” Emma said, backing away and shaking her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“That is your own choice. Believe what you will.”

Emma growled and turned away shaking her head. She created a significant distance between Regina and herself, and the two lost themselves in thought as their wait to leave the dark cavern lengthened.

*****

“How long are we here for?” Emma snapped, waking Regina from a dreamless, uncomfortable nap. She frowned to find the Swan woman standing over her with her hands on her hips.

“I have no idea, Miss Swan. We had just been blasted back by a wall of fire onto a very uncomfortable stairwell. Who knows how long it’ll take for you to scramble out from underneath me.” Regina stood with as much dignity as she could muster and brushed invisible dirt from her suit. Her ankle continued to throb, but it was just able to take her weight.

Emma shook her head watching and shivered involuntarily. “You left me, last time we were here. You let me freeze,” she said weakly. “Why?”

Regina lifted her chin and said, “I refuse to let you break me.”

“Break you?”

“You, my dear, are the key to breaking the curse. It stands to reason that if you break me, The Evil Queen, you break the curse. I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t _allow_ it?” Emma laughed derisively. “From what I understand, you don’t have a choice.”

“We shall see, won’t we?”

Emma scoffed to herself. “So, in this heart of yours, I assume I should look forward to being frozen, or burned or tortured from now on while you stand back and watch?”

“Not necessarily. Perhaps you could try and rein in that mouth of yours and refrain from irritating me and thus creating any untoward emotions.”

Emma let out a derisive laugh. “I find that unlikely.”

Regina smiled despite herself. “As do I, dear.”

Emma returned the smile and for a fleeting moment, a ray of light cast itself over them.

Regina hardened her jaw against the intrusion of the warmth and the light vanished.

Emma, who had looked up to the source of light, said, “What if I’m not here to break you, Regina. But to help you find the light again?”

Regina sucked in a breath and knitted her eyebrows together. Was the Saviour suggesting what she thought she was? Chancing it, she said quietly, “Redemption?”

Emma looked back to Regina and shrugged. “Why not?”

 _Foolish girl_ , Regina thought as she huffed. That possibility had long been buried. She smiled coldly. “Because, dear, I’ve been assured there is no road back from this void, no redemption for those that take the path of revenge. There is no _saving_ the Evil Queen.”

“What if they were wrong? What if Rumple, Maleficent and your father were wrong?”

“How …?” Regina stopped her question. Of course, Emma knew the people that told her there would be no redemption for her thanks to the heart memories. “What if they were right?”

“If you had a chance to redeem yourself, would you even take it?”

Regina’s eyes narrowed at Emma and she stepped into her personal space. “You’ve seen my memories, you know I’ve already been given chances. I refused them all.”

“No one has offered it to you since you enacted the curse. Since you had Henry.”

“But you are, aren’t you? You’re offering redemption. You’re offering to _save_ me?” Regina stepped back, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I’m not worth saving, Miss Swan. I’m evil, just like Henry says I am. I’m to be defeated, not saved.” Regina could feel how hollow her words were. She knew that there was a part of her that wanted to end the madness, but fortune had never been kind to her. At every turn she met a reason to keep descending into the darkness. Why interrupt the darkness of her magic? And for what? A nice warm light shining down on her in the cavern of her heart? She scoffed at her thoughts.

Emma took hold of her hand, holding tight as Regina tried to pull hers away. Their bracelets glowed and a warmth entered her body. 

“This has to mean something,” Emma said, looking at the light that bonded them.

“Cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps?”

“Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” Emma said with a shake of her head as the corners of her mouth tugged upwards.

Regina fought the replying grin, failing as a smile graced her face.

Emma’s smiled broadened and Regina could see the happiness sparkling in the green depths of her eyes. Knowing she had caused that made her next breath hitch slightly. Happiness … the one emotion that forever evaded her. To Emma, it came easily, and this time, because Regina had smiled, Regina had made Emma smile.

A warm light shone down on the pair that went unnoticed as Emma raised a hand to Regina’s cheek. 

“You’re worth saving,” she whispered, her thumb brushing across Regina’s cheek.

Regina shook her head, feeling the tears flush her eyes. “No … I’m not,” she said on a ragged breath.

Smiling kindly, Emma wiped a tear away and said quietly, “Let me be the judge of that.” Emma’s thumb brushed across her lower lip. “I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t bite me.”

Regina couldn’t stop the smile at Emma’s words before her lips were covered by Emma’s. It was soft, and the complete opposite of their previous encounter. An involuntary whimper came from Regina’s throat as Emma moved her lips gently across her own. Warm breath caressed her skin as Emma’s tongue swept across her lower lip, eliciting a gasp. 

Tentatively, they explored each other. Regina’s head spun at the waves of emotion Emma’s touch was creating. She felt stronger than she could ever remember feeling, but at the same time, her knees trembled and threatened to give under her weight. Something inside her wanted to surrender completely to Emma, and on a deep moan, Regina let it. Stepping flush against the curves of the woman, Regina brought her hand up and tangled it in thick blonde locks, pulling the woman’s mouth against her to deepen the kiss.

Emma’s surprised groan emboldened her further, and Regina flicked out her tongue, tasting the lips below hers. Emma’s breathy sigh at the action almost melted her on the spot. Nothing had ever felt this intense, this intimate, this … true. 

That last thought made her take a sharp breath. She took a step back, finding Emma’s flushed and confused expression looking at her for answers. An expression that was illuminated by a series of lights shining down on them from above. Regina glanced up at their impossible presence before staring once again at Emma’s questioning face.

“I … I …”

The ground disappeared from beneath them and with a blink, they were back in the stairwell staring at a wall of flame at the door.

###

“All right, come on, we’ve got to get out of here,” Emma said urgently as she watched Regina struggle on the stair well below her. She gave her head a shake as she saw a curious purple light flash in those brown eyes. An instant later the phenomenon was gone.

“I can’t move!” Regina cried. “Help me!” She said desperately, grabbing Emma’s hand.

###

With a thump, Emma hit the ground again. “God, damn it!” she muttered as she once again picked herself up off the dark floor blazed with orange light.

“Really, Miss Swan, you’d think you’d learn?” Regina said as she came down to her own soft landing.

“Shut up,” Emma muttered as she stood with a wince.

As Emma righted herself, the women found themselves in an awkward stand-off. Moments earlier, they had been kissing, the proof of it still present as the darkness was split by several shafts of light. The ability to hide the truth in their eyes was gone along with the absolute darkness.

“Why did you hesitate?” Emma asked Regina.

Regina dropped her gaze to the floor. “I … don’t know.”

“The kiss … it felt …” Emma shuffled her feet. “God, Regina, it felt …” Emma shook her head, unable to put label her feelings. 

Regina took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It certainly wasn’t unpleasant. It’s safe to say that Graham didn’t _freak_ out because of your poor kissing skills.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what, dear?”

“Don’t talk about him. I haven’t forgiven you for that yet.”

“Oh? And what _have_ you forgiven me for?”

Emma frowned, confused. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, it’s quite obvious you don’t hate me … not completely anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

Regina stepped up to Emma so mere inches separated them. “No one kisses someone they hate the way you kissed me, Miss Swan. It was … surprisingly enjoyable.”

Emma’s eyes dropped. “That could just be my exceptional kissing skills, you know? How do you know I felt anything at all?”

Feeling slighted that Emma cast her off so easily, preferring to recognise her talents than her feelings, Regina stiffened and said bitterly, “Oh, of course. I mustn’t forget the amount of practice you’ve had.” Emma’s past was an open book to her now, and she used it defensively. “Maybe next time you might show me what that pretty pink tongue of yours can do when it isn’t bumbling incoherently and spitting out profanities.”

“What?” Emma said, face expressing shock.

“Come now, Miss Swan, I’ve seen from your heart memories that you know how to use your … _talents_ to the best effect. One must utilise their strengths. I’ve seen how you use your body as yours.”

Predictably, Emma’s face flushed with anger as green eyes stared at her incredulously. “Why do you do that?” Emma ground out.

“Do what?” Regina asked, already knowing the answer. She could feel Emma’s hurt trickle through her body. It felt cold and itchy. Doing her best to ignore it, she looked disinterestedly at Emma as she answered.

“You go for the cruellest thing to say, and then gleefully rub it in with a twist of your heeled foot?”

Regina’s eyebrows raised. “I _am_ the Evil Queen, dear, it’s what I do.”

Emma’s frustrated growl pushed Regina back a step. “You just can’t let anyone be happy, can you? I share a moment with you that’s just so … so …” Emma’s mouth worked up and down as she tried to find the words. _Perfect!_ Her mind screamed. In the end, she gave up with a huff. “Whatever. I’m done with this,” she muttered bleakly and walked off.

Regina watched her go with trepidation. _Perfect?_ Emma thought their kiss was perfect? _But_ … Regina sighed, realising she’d completely misread Emma’s words. And now the woman was tearing across the darkness in a curious mix of angry, injured and embarrassed, and knowing she caused the conflict, she stiffened her shoulders, pretending not to care. She failed, evident in the way the light streaming down upon them dimmed a fraction. Regina sighed sadly. _She was simply trying to defend herself, that’s all_ , she thought to herself. Emma may have convinced herself that she was worth saving, but a lifetime of evidence to the contrary had built an impenetrable fortress around Regina’s heart. There was no saving, there was no redemption, and there was only the way forward. Into what, she had no clue. What she did know, was that she was going to continue to protect herself.

She looked up into the dim light above her.

At least she thought the walls she had built were impenetrable.

###

“You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?” Regina said, her face every inch terrified.

Emma didn’t respond. Instead, she looked at the broken woman and pursed her lips together after having wrenched her arm from Regina’s grip. The woman wouldn’t understand the truth if it hit her in the face. Turning her back on the Mayor, Emma leapt through the doorway, feeling the intense heat lick at her skin. The sensation seemed familiar somehow. Why, she had no idea. Snatching a fire extinguisher from the wall, she turned back, spraying its contents on the flames to reach the mayor. Reaching out a hand, she threw the mayor’s arm over hers and pulled the woman from the ground.

###

“You’re saving me?” Regina said in astonishment as they returned, once again, to her heart.

“Of course I am!” Emma said, frustrated that both this woman, and the mayor of Storybrooke kept doubting her.

“Do you have any idea how easy it would have been for you to leave me to burn?”

“Easy? Leaving you to die is _not_ easy, Regina! I don’t want you hurt, not here, not in Storybrooke! Why can’t you understand that!”

“You don’t know anything about me in Storybrooke. I just splashed your juvenile record across the front page of the newspaper, yet you keep being … nice,” Regina said, with a look on her face that contorted into disgust.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Relax, I don’t think it’s contagious.”

Regina’s face morphed into one of confusion.

Sighing loudly, Emma explained, “I’m saving you because that’s what good people do. I’m good. Get used to it.” Emma’s jaw worked as she seemed to hesitate over her next words. “For what it’s worth, I don’t hate you. Not completely.”

Regina raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I can’t hate the woman that raised my son, Regina. He’s a great kid and that was all down to you. Regardless of how much of a bitch you can be, that’s one thing that can never be disputed. You’re a good mother, Regina.”

Blinking, Regina swayed back a little with surprise. “Thank you, Miss Swan.”

Emma smiled wearily at her words. “You’re welcome.”

Silence descended on them both, and Emma stepped away from Regina awkwardly. With a sad shake of her head, and still looking wounded from their previous conversation, Emma walked into the darkness again.

Regina sniffed dismissively at the pang of guilt she felt for her earlier words, and looked around at the void. The light created from their kiss had yet to fade completely, and its peaceful glow tempted her. Regina shut her eyes and turned her face up to it, letting the warmth of it spread through her limbs. This feeling, it was foreign, but touched her pleasurably. The light offered her a strange peace that she’d never once known. She could almost feel it chasing away the shadows. It promised so much. Somehow, Emma had gifted this to her. The woman’s caressing lips had made this happen.

Regina wanted more of this. More light. More peace, and, despite her reluctance … more Emma.

With a sharp intake of breath, she felt Emma take her hand and squeeze it softly; her thumb brushing across Regina’s knuckles. Regina shuddered with the ripples of serenity that coursed through her as a result, and interlaced her fingers with Emma’s. 

“You’re beautiful,” she heard Emma whisper, her body coming up against Regina’s side as she said the words into her ear.

Regina shivered. Unwilling to let go of the emotions that held so much freedom, she remained in place, head turned up and eyes closed. She was, however, unable to stop her head jerking back on her neck as she gasped when Emma’s lips pressed against her neck. A whole different feeling vibrated through her at the touch.

“I want you, Regina,” Emma purred against the skin at her neck, and brazenly ran a hand down Regina’s side, a thumb cheekily brushing over the swell of her breast, before the hand stopped at her hip. Fingers skirted under the waistband of her tailored slacks and Regina trembled as goose bumps raised on her skin at the touch.

“I _need_ you,” Emma growled into the hollow of Regina’s throat as her hand left the hip and abruptly cupped Regina’s sex.

Unable to hold back a cry of surprise, Regina yelped and opened her eyes with a snap to reprimand Emma for being so forward. What Regina didn’t expect was the complete lack of Emma’s proximity. She looked around wildly for the woman she swore had been pressed against her moments ago, but found no trace of her.

“Regina?” Emma called out from somewhere behind her.

Regina spun on the spot to find Emma walking out of the darkness, a frown of concern on her face. 

“Are you okay?” the woman asked as she drew near.

“I—umm—yes. Fine.” Regina cleared her throat and wished fervently that the blush she knew was glowing on her skin would go away.

“You don’t look it,” Emma said as she reached out a hand and felt her forehead. “You feel flushed.”

Regina batted Emma’s hand away. “I assure you, I’m perfectly well, thank you, Miss Swan.” She took a step away from Emma and her knees buckled beneath her. Treacherous body. She cursed it. The thought of Emma Swan’s touch shouldn’t have this much power.

“Why are you trembling?” Emma asked, having caught Regina’s arm as she stumbled.

Regina wrenched it back. “Get off me!”

Emma took a sharp pace backwards and held her hands up in surrender. “Sorry,” she muttered, looking as if she’d much rather swear.

Regina glared, silently berating herself for being so rude. It wasn’t Emma’s fault she was currently unbalanced. But then again … it _was_ Emma’s fault. Thoughts of the exasperating woman had caused this. Thoughts Regina didn’t want, or need. A kiss was one thing, but sex … intimacy was a whole other realm of trouble. _No_ , Regina thought, _I never want to explore that. Especially not with_ her.

Regina caught herself shaking her head at Emma, who was looking back at her with her eyebrows raised.

“What is up with you?” Emma asked fairly.

“Nothing.” Regina turned away and walked into the darkness. 

Emma’s muttered, “Bat-shit crazy,” didn’t go unnoticed by her ears as she stalked off.

*****

“I want to apologise,” Emma said, creeping up behind Regina several hours later as several drops of rain began to fall. Regina jumped and turned in time to catch Emma’s wince at startling her. “I’m not sure exactly what I did, but I’m sorry anyway.”

Regina shook her head and turned her attention to the darkness in front of her, surreptitiously wiping away a stray tear as Emma stood beside her. Breaking the silence that had strung out between them after Emma joined her, Regina said, “You’ve nothing to apologise for, dear. I … got caught up in my own mind and lashed out unnecessarily. _I’m_ the one that should be asking for forgiveness.”

“Oh?” Emma looked confused. “Are you?”

“Am I, what, Miss Swan?”

“Asking for forgiveness.”

“No.”

“Oh … right.” Emma frowned and shook her head.

“I’m merely pointing out that you were not entirely at fault.”

Emma nodded sagely. “Which implies that you were?”

Regina clenched her jaw. 

Emma shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know what, don’t worry about it. I don’t want to keep fighting. Besides, it might end up with me being deep fried or something. So instead, I’ll just stand here and keep quiet.”

“That sounds remarkably sensible. I didn’t think you had it in you, Miss Swan.”

Emma scoffed and pinched her nose harder. “Yeah, who would’ve thunk it.”

“Thought of it, dear.”

Emma let out an exasperated breath at Regina’s correction of her slang. “Of course.”

Regina clenched her jaw as the bitter taste of guilt continued to swirl within her. Standing as she was, facing the dark, she had been watching the replay of her life in her mind’s eye. For the first time in many decades, she had thought back to the innocent girl she once was. Though innocence was something she knew she had never really been granted. She’d always known the ambitiousness of her mother, and the firm and punishing hand she dished it out with. Her life had been out of her control since her first infant’s breath. She had been put on the path of darkness before she even knew the difference between dark and light. How was she ever supposed to be anything _but_ the Evil Queen when all that had influenced her life dealt in nothing but hidden agendas and ill-disguised lust for power? She had been their conduit to achieve their ultimate goals, leaving her nothing but an empty, angry shell. 

Everyone used her. Her mother, Rumplestiltskin … even Henry. She knew what it was Cora Mills wanted … power. Rumple … well his agenda had yet to be revealed, but she knew without doubt that his curse was yet another one of his grand manipulations to achieve his own ends. That curse … that apple so delicately dangled in front of her as the answer to her happy ending, had been nothing but his cunning device to reach this land, using her powerful need for vengeance and a happy ending to drive it. _What a joke_ , Regina thought bitterly. _There was no happy ending for her._

There was a time, not too long ago, that she thought Henry was her answer. That he would accept her love and return it without recompense. How wrong she had been. Henry had turned on her just like the rest of them. He sought out his birth mother in a desperate bid to end the curse he was convinced existed. He had painted her evil thanks to Snow White and that dreadful book, while conveniently forgetting the ten long years she had loved him and cared for him as his mother.

Henry’s deception was heartbreak wrapped in agony. Could he not see how deeply he had wounded her? She batted away another tear drop.

“Regina?” Emma asked softly.

Regina turned her attention on Emma. The _birth_ mother. The woman that had stolen Henry whether she realised it or not. She had his loyalty, his faith, his trust, his love, leaving Regina with nothing but his bitterness, distrust, and venom. The guilt she felt at baiting Emma, at hurting her with words faded away, but then the memory of that kiss, of that daydream came to mind like a cannonball. Regina flinched.

“Regina, you’re crying,” Emma said, standing directly in front of her and looking concerned.

A drop of rain hit Regina’s head, and she turned her face up to it to welcome the cold, sharps drops of water.

“What’s wrong?”

“You are, dear.”

Emma’s face screwed up in confusion. “I … what?”

Regina stared at Emma and counted the different shades of green in her eyes.

“What do you want from me?” Regina asked.

“I … want from you? What?” Emma blinked as she frowned thoughtfully. “I want nothing from you.”

“Not my son? My affections? My _power_?”

“I’m _not_ taking Henry from you, Regina. When are you going to understand that?”

“The moment you leave Storybrooke, Miss Swan. Until then, you are a threat to me.”

“I’m ... dammit, Regina! I’m not a threat! I’m … well … I thought I was your friend … in here, anyway,” Emma said with a grand gesture of her arm.

“Here is not real, dear.”

“I know that,” Emma snapped bitterly. With an added sigh, she said, “I wish you’d stop trying to find the ulterior motive, I don’t have one. I want to be your friend. I care for you.”

“My life has been one big ulterior motive, Miss Swan, so forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

Emma shook her head, her eyes filling out with sadness. “I’ve seen your life, Regina. No one could have survived that without being scarred. You’ve been the pawn in everyone else’s game, and the only decisions you felt were your own was the desperate kind. You were left with choices that could only tear at your soul.” Emma reached out tentatively and touched Regina’s arm. “Grief and heartbreak is a terrible burden to bear, but there has to come a time that you need to let it go. If you don’t, the darkness will swallow you whole. You’ve been pushed into the shadows for too long. You’re too beautifully broken to remain in the shade. Come stand in the light. Maybe … maybe stand with me?”

Regina listened to Emma’s words with a clenched jaw. Her body had tightened with tension at each syllable Emma uttered. They were sweet, tempting words. Their promise held so much. But she’d heard these whispered promises before, granted they had never been spoken so kindly, but still … what Emma offered was laced with danger. Taking that step was asking for too much. Not enough trust existed within her to allow herself to follow Emma to the light.

“Pretty words, Miss Swan, but you’re asking the impossible.”

“It’s too much to ask for you to be happy?”

“My happy ending was over a long time ago, dear. I’ve spent twenty-eight years realising that _charming_ little fact.” Regina chuckled at the irony of her description.

“And spent twenty-eight years making sure no one gets their ending either, right?”

“Indeed.”

“I’d hate to break it to you, but there’s no such thing as happily ever after.”

“Certainly not for you, Miss Swan,” Regina bit back unnecessarily.

“No … because you made sure of that, but you know what, I forgive you.”

Holding back a gasp and a jolt of horror at how much Emma just sounded like her mother, Snow White, Regina felt the bitterness swell inside her.

Emma, not reading Regina’s darkening mood, ploughed on. “I know your mother abused you—no … _tortured_ you. I know you were let down by _everyone_ that meant something to you, and it’s not fair. However, you still deserve a happy ending, but you have to work for it. It’s not a given. You have to fight for it, and not by cursing the whole realm, but by letting go. By forgiving past misdeeds and starting anew. Forgive Snow White. Let her forgive you.”

“And _you_ , Miss Swan, are as ridiculous as your mother! What you _Charming’s_ don’t seem to understand is that I don’t _want_ forgiveness, it means nothing to me. Making your lives miserable, however, gives me great pleasure. So, am I sorry you suffered the horrors of abandonment when you were mere hours old? No. Am I sorry, you suffered through your childhood being abused, neglected, disappointed and unhappy? No, I’m not. It’s all part of the greater package, Miss Swan. Your suffering, while your mother doesn’t yet know of it, will eventually cause her a great deal of pain. And _that_ , my dear, is what makes this all worthwhile.” Regina stepped up to Emma and tried to take some delight in the way the woman winced. However, all it did was twist something inside her; something sharp and uncomfortable. “I’m under no disillusions that you are here to break the curse, Miss Swan. It was prophesised. Yes, I used to be deathly afraid of you, but now that I know you … know your past … well, now I’m looking forward to the day that your mother realises her precious little baby girl grew up into a sullied street tramp. I promised to destroy her happiness, and your life history will do that for me. What mother can love a child who so willingly gave her body as payment for a meal? Or for the comfort of a bed? Snow White is disgustingly pure, and wholesome, do you really think breaking the curse is in your best interest? I think not. Sure, she’ll be happy to be reunited with her precious, long-lost daughter, but what’s going to happen when she hears of your criminal record? Your unplanned pregnancy? Your years of abuse? Your inability to trust, to love, to commit? Trust me, dear, she’ll be happy to see the back of you when you finally do run, as I’m sure you will. You’ll be nothing but a disappointment to her and her fantasised ideals. And that? That is the most valuable gift anyone has ever given me. Thank you, Miss Swan. ”

The hurt at her harsh words was written all over Emma’s face. Her usually easy-going features were twisted in a mix of pain and shock. Those green eyes soaked up Regina’s words and seemed to connect the dots. The helpless expression resonated through Regina’s mind as Emma’s thoughts were shared in stereo: _I’m worthless. I’m unlovable. I’m broken. My parents could never love me. No one could. There’s nothing left to love. Was there ever anything to love in the first place?_

Regina swallowed and moved out of Emma’s personal space, suddenly uncomfortable at the self-depreciating insights. All her distance gained, however, was the room Emma needed to deliver a cruel slap to her left cheek. Gasping in pain, she stumbled backwards and blinked through the tears welling in her eyes as Emma fled into the dark, leaving nothing behind but dull, orange footprints.

“Emma …” she whispered croakily. A little shocked at the sound of her own voice, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Miss Swan!”

No reply.

And really, why was she calling out to the woman? _To get her to apologise for physically abusing her, of course_ , Regina thought. 

Regina let out a long breath. Something inside Regina tore at the damage she had inflicted at her lashing of her tongue. She could feel Emma’s pain thanks to that horrible need to gain insight on the woman. Regina crumpled to her knees and clutched at her chest. Emma’s heart was breaking. No … it was shattering. That last little bit of hope the woman had clung to all her life, Regina could feel it being torn to pieces. 

All of Emma’s years of wishing for a family, for wishing for unconditional love felt as though they evaporated, leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell. Regina clutched at her chest with the pain of it.

 _She’s right_. She heard Emma think. _I’m fooling myself thinking I can find a family in Storybrooke. Find someone to care for. To find someone that cares for me. Snow … who could love a daughter like me? I’m nobody, nothing. Hell, I don’t deserve Henry. I’ve already abandoned him once. When he gets over the daydream of the Saviour ideal, he’s going to leave me too. I’ll never be able to live up to his expectations. I’m not cut out to be a mother. I’m not Regina._

Regina gasped as those thoughts hit her. Granted, she agreed with Emma’s introspective about her ability at being a mother, but still, she didn’t think it was fair. She’d had ten years to learn the art, Emma had barely met the son she birthed.

_Oh, God … Regina. I don’t deserve her either …_

Regina stiffened _. Deserve her?_ She waited, hoping Emma’s thoughts would continue, but nothing but chilly darkness came to her. Emma had closed herself off.

Regina had never felt more alone in her life. Every word she had uttered to Emma was based on fact, but still … did she really mean them? Did she really need to deliver them with a hearty helping of malice? Emma had done nothing but try to help her; inside or outside her heart. The fact she was pulling her out of a burning building proved the point completely. Yet still, she didn’t … couldn’t … trust the woman.

Best to push her away than give her the opportunity to expose what was left of her heart.

Regina nodded to the dark. Yes, that was what she needed to do … push Emma away.

A sob came back to her from the darkness. It pierced her logic without resistance. Her throat began to burn as emotion swelled in her. Regret, guilt, shame, pride … it stuck and burned, making it hard for her to breathe. Heavy drops began to slap the dark floor below her as she hunched over clutching her torso as if she was holding back the tide of emotion threatening to burst from her.

Another sob. 

Hers.

 _No. Don’t. Regina, pull yourself together_ , she berated herself.

But try as she might, several decade’s worth of sorrow, pain, and suffering erupted from her. She sobbed in heavy waves as she cried for the life she had lived. A life built on destroying everything good. A life lived the only way she had been taught by the twisted ambitiousness of her mother. A life she had never wanted, but one she had so seamlessly adopted. It was a life hell bent on seeking revenge, and for what? For a child that was manipulated into spilling a secret. A child no older than Henry. An innocent. Lastly, she cried as she realised she didn’t want this anymore. She was tired. 

And it was pouring with torrential rain in the cavern that was her heart.

As Regina’s conscience began its floundering reintroduction into her soul, the rain beating down on her skin with sharp, precise stings went unnoticed. The water lashing her flesh was nothing compared to the agony of guilt and regret. 

Thunder boomed across the void, finally jolting her from her mind. Blinking against the storm for a moment, she shut her eyes and tipped her head up, welcoming the cold, hard drops and letting them mingle with the hot, salty tears streaking her face.

She heard a wet thump come down beside her, and slowly glancing to the noise, she found Emma kneeling next to her in the rain. Her face was pure anguish and hurt; a look she realised must mirror her own. The soaked blonde woman looked mournfully back at her, almost in understanding, and remained silent and steady.

Regina’s face crumpled under the empathetic scrutiny and undeserved of the compassion she saw in those green-flecked eyes, she shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Another sob threatened, and though she willed restraint now that she had a witness, it came out anyway in one long tearing effort. More followed, and as she double-over again as her shoulders heaved with sorrow, she was quietly grateful that Emma allowed her companionable peace as her heart tore with decades of remorse.

It wasn’t until the sobs had petered out and her limbs trembled violently that Emma reached out for her. Collapsing into the security offered in Emma’s strong arms, the storm fell away into a distant memory as nothing but warmth and whispered words of comfort fed her broken soul.

 


	6. after the storm

Those arms were around her as she woke; her body tucked up against Emma’s as the blonde woman cradled her from behind. Blinking away the grit and puffiness of her eyes, she found herself squinting at the light surrounding her. It was as though the storm clouds had been pushed aside for the sunshine; a light that beckoned new promise. Regina rubbed at her eyes, blinking them again to make sense of what she saw. Gone was the darkness; gone was the black ember floor; in its place, a warm yellow light and a carpet of soft green grass. The rain had eroded the cold dark floor, soaking its life-giving water into the dormant seeds of life below. The change was remarkable.

Reaching out with a hand, Regina brushed her slender fingers across the top of the soft, lush grass. The wisp of the tender green shoots cooled her fingers and brought a smile to her face.

An arm tightened around her waist, increasing Regina’s smile. She wasn’t going to run from the contentedness she felt this time. Waking up in Emma’s arms the first time had been terrifyingly easy, and had been something she was ill-prepared for. Now, her heart felt settled and sturdy for the first time in decades of memory. This gentle confidence had been something she only ever glimpsed before in the arms of her true love Daniel. She felt ready to embrace something different and finally leave the shadows behind, but before she could do that, she had apologies to make. Turning in Emma’s hold, Regina looked warily at the green eyes that blinked open from her movement.

“Morning,” Emma said croakily, her voice sounding hoarse from her own emotional suffering the night previously. Her eyes looked swollen and the light shining there looked duller. Regina’s jaw clenched in response; she knew that fading glint had been her doing. Emma misunderstood the body language and abruptly let go of her, securing distance and muttering apologies.

“Emma,” Regina said softly, reaching out and capturing a retreating arm. “Wait.”

Emma stilled her movement and stared back at Regina blankly. Regina’s heart dropped at the lack of emotion in the woman’s eyes.

“I …” Regina cleared her throat. “I want to apologise.”

“For what?”

“Last night … for what I said. I’m sorry.” Regina wanted to drop her eyes, to hide from her apology, but wanting to know Emma’s reaction, no matter how minute, she was unable to tear her gaze away. Emma remained still and unresponsive for several long heartbeats. Until … there. Emma’s eyes flickered.

“You … you’re apologising?”

Regina nodded and cleared her throat once more. “I didn’t mean … I … I wish I hadn’t treated you so harshly. You didn’t deserve it.”

Emma straightened up. “I think I did. You were right.”

“No,” Regina gasped, reaching out and taking Emma’s cuffed hand in her own. “I was wrong, Emma. Yes, your life was hard and trying, but you survived. Everything you went through made you stronger. Your … your mother will be proud of the woman you’ve become in spite of those things.”

Emma’s eyes stirred. Something in the green depths softened, almost looking to trust the words Regina was sharing with her, but she shook her head. “I’m not a good person, Regina. I’m no saviour.”

“Yes, you are.” Regina looked around. “You’re saving me.”

Emma followed Regina’s line of sight and took in the changes in the landscape around her. A soft gasp accompanied her inspection. A smile tickled at the corners of her mouth. “Regina, you did it.”

“ _We_ did it.”

Emma looked back at her, shaking her head once more. “No. This was all you.”

“No, Emma. I couldn’t have done this by myself. I had so many chances to change, to seek the light in the dark, but I took none. I was never strong enough to fight for this.” Regina waved an arm around at what had become of her heart. “You showed me how.”

Emma’s head continued to shake. 

“You let me in. You dared to challenge me. You fought for the light you knew was inside me. You … kissed me. You sat with me as all the pain I’ve seen or endured tore me apart. You held me when I wasn’t strong enough to fight anymore. Emma … you saved me.”

Emma smiled, the creases on her cheeks at the movement were captured by Regina’s hands now cradling her face. “You let yourself be saved.”

Regina let out a grunt of frustration at her saviour’s modesty, and Emma’s smile turned into a smug grin. Smiling back for a moment, Regina caressed Emma’s cheek with her thumbs. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Emma’s grin faded. “It’s okay,” she said softly.

“No. It isn’t.”

“We all make mistakes, Regina.”

“Yes, we do. I have made a substantial amount in my wretched life. Many of which I regret.” Her hands dropped away from Emma’s face and they sat in contemplative silence. Regina’s mind cast over the atrocities she had inflicted upon others in that cruel, dark time after Daniel’s death. Fifteen years. Fifteen years’ worth of plotting, revenge, and suffering. She had suffered silently in heartbreak until Rumple offered her magic. Magic that became the foundation on which she dished out her revenge after the Genie had so willingly assassinated the king. Over a decade of war between good and evil, of lives lost and found, of moments of surrender and victory, had led her to her master once again. To Rumplestiltskin. To the curse that ended the wars, ended the deaths, and ensured her peace. Peace …

Regina shook her head and didn’t notice the light dim and flicker. She had never found peace. Only those under the curse had that gift. Their ignorance and blissfully easy lives surrounded by modern comforts and conveniences had been more than they deserved. And what did she gain from the curse? Nothing but repetition and nightmares plagued with regret. Of memories of each and every punishment she had dealt out and had been dealt in return. She had imprisoned herself willingly for twenty-eight years and for what? Nothing. The saviour would break her curse and the inhabitants of Storybrooke will once again resume their war against her. She had only delayed the inevitable.

“Regina, stop it.” Emma’s voice penetrated her thoughts.

Looking up in bewilderment, she finally noticed the shift in light. Once basking and sunny, it had dimmed to twilight, the grass now dull as though illuminated by moonlight.

“Stop thinking what you’re thinking,” Emma repeated.

“I’ve had enough of it all,” Regina confessed. “I’m tired.” She took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. “I want you to break the curse, Emma. I want this to end.”

Emma took hold of her hands, the cuffed wrists glowing pleasantly. “I will, when I figure out how.”

Regina nodded, comforted that soon, her suffering would end. She would be made to pay for her crimes and she could make peace with herself. She realised now that death was her happy ever after. It would end the pain and appease the realm. Shutting her eyes, she smiled, a slight quiver in her bottom lip.

“Regina?”

The quiver strengthened and the smile slipped from her face.

“Regina, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, dear. My happy ever after is coming.” Her voice hitched and trembled, much to her annoyance.

“Look at me,” Emma demanded with a pair of hands cupping Regina’s face, tipping it up to face her. Green eyes penetrated the brown and searched her. Regina tried to fidget away from the intensity of the look. “You’re giving up?” Emma said, the shock evident. “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Giving up!”

“No, Emma. I’m not surrendering, I’m _accepting_. The time is approaching when Snow and her minions will come for me and make me accountable for all that I’ve done. I’m not hiding anymore.”

“No. I’m not going to let you roll over and let them … what? Kill you? Imprison you?”

“I have caused many deaths in my time, Miss Swan. Are you forgetting Graham? Do you not believe that I should suffer as he did? To be fated to draw my last breath and leave this life?” Regina lowered her voice and added, “Trust me, dear, it will be the most fitting punishment. I am no coward and accept it as such.”

“Are you crazy? What about your son!”

Regina flinched at the mention of Henry.

“He deserves his mother, and I refuse to let you give him up so easily.”

The water pooled in Regina’s eyes as she said with a tremble, “Henry believes good beats evil, Miss Swan. Is he not encouraging you to fight me? To end my reign as Evil Queen? My death will ensure victory for him.”

Emma’s hands dropped to Regina’s shoulders and she gave them a firm shake. “No, your death will scar him with regret, grief and a lifetime of longing. Your death will twist him, Regina. He’s a child, for God’s sake. The fight for good over evil is nothing but a romantic dream for him. Not once has he ever had to deal with the consequences of that war, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to teach him that killing someone is the way to win.” Emma shook her again. “He needs his mother. He needs you to show him that no matter how dark it gets, you can find the light again. All you need is the power of love to support you. He’ll support you, Regina. _I’ll_ support you!”

“Miss Swan—”

“I’m not letting you die, Regina!”

Regina’s head dropped.

“Please … you need to fight. For Henry.” _For me, Regina. Fight for me._ Emma’s thoughts continued silently. 

Regina tipped her head up as she heard them in her mind. “Why do you care?” she asked without a trace of sarcasm.

“Because I know Henry—”

“No, Miss Swan. Why do _you_ care?”

Emma blinked and shifted, her hands dropping from Regina’s shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Emma’s confusion was swimming across those green orbs. It was obvious to Regina that she was conflicted about her feelings, and understandably so. By all accounts, she was a monster, an evil one at that. But yet, Emma Swan cared for her despite of it all. Her eyes said as much.

“Will you fight for us?” Emma asked, voicing her compassion.

Regina felt as conflicted as Emma had looked. The woman before her held so much promise, but at the greatest price she’d ever known. If she took this chance, this risk with what was left of her heart, it would be the end of her. Could she sacrifice what was left? She knew the answer, and sought Emma’s hands. Giving them a squeeze, she said softly, “Yes.”

*****

“Weird,” Emma said loudly, breaking a silence that had lasted for an indefinable amount of time. 

Regina jumped violently at the intrusion. “Miss Swan,” she snapped.

“Sorry,” Emma said meekly, a grimace on her face.

Huffing out a breath of air, Regina looked back across the fields of moonlit grass, resuming the position she had been sitting in for hours. Beside her, Emma sighed and fidgeted. She had been restless since the silence had started. Something that was fast becoming irritating. “What is it, Miss Swan?”

“Well … it’s weird.”

“What is?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Regina stared back at her blankly. “Excuse me?”

“We’ve been in here for … well … ages, and not once have I felt hungry. All we really do in here is talk and sleep. When not being tortured or drowned or frozen or burned alive, of course.”

“Of course.” Regina rolled her eyes.

“So why is that?”

“Why is what, dear?”

“That I’m not hungry?”

“I have absolutely no idea, nor do I intend to deliberate on the subject.”

“Huh …”

Regina raised an eyebrow at Emma.

“More weird,” the blonde woman said again. “I haven’t needed to use the bathroom either.”

Regina gasped in horror. “Don’t you dare!”

“What? I don’t have to go, I was just saying—”

“I would really prefer that you didn’t, thank you.”

“Touchy,” Emma muttered.

“When it’s your heart we reside in, Miss Swan, feel free to use the bathroom. If you so much as _think_ about desecrating mine with your bodily functions, I will not hesitate to have you killed.”

Emma clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I never said I needed to go, I’m saying that I haven’t—”

Regina held up her hands abruptly. “I don’t want to hear it. In fact, please drop the subject entirely and move on.”

Emma let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?”

“I was quite happy remaining silent. I don’t possess your particular brand of attention deficit disorder and am able to function rather well without the need for constant stimuli.”

“Hey,” was all Emma was able to say in rebuttal.

Regina shook her head and turned her attention back to the fields.

“So …”

Regina growled and snapped Emma with a hard glare.

Emma clamped her jaw shut and narrowed her eyes at her. A smirk then graced her face.

Regina’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Dare I ask?”

“I thought of something to do.”

“Pin ball.” Emma lifted up her fingers to snap them.

“No! Don’t you—” In a snap, a pin ball machine appeared in Regina’s heart. “—dare.” Regina finished off wearily. The sounds of the joyful machine already grating on her nerves. As Emma jumped up and stepped over to the machine, she yelped when Regina blasted it out of existence with a fireball. 

“What the hell, Regina!” Emma rounded on her.

“I will not have some cheesy arcade contraption littering my heart. I have standards, Miss Swan.”

“Of what? Dark, gloomy voids with freaky burning floors?”

“Exactly.”

“I’m bored!” Emma said with a distinct whine.

“Oh, for goodness sake! You’re a grown woman, Miss Swan. It’s high time you act like one.”

“It’s not my fault there’s a distinct lack of things to do it in here.”

“My heart is not some carnival side show!”

“No, it’s just a representation of your messed up life. It’s quite obvious there was no fun to be had in your time as queen.”

Regina’s hands were now firmly planted on her hips as she glared at Emma. “Oh, I assure you, dear, I had plenty of _fun_.”

“Tearing out hearts and wiping out villages isn’t fun, Regina, it’s twisted and cruel.”

Regina’s glare faltered. “I never said those things were enjoyable. In fact, they were … I …” Regina’s gaze dropped to the ground, the grass beginning to wilt under her emotional baggage.

Emma swore under her breath and stepped over to the floundering woman. “I was teasing, I’m sorry.”

Dragging her eyes back up, she fixed them on Emma’s guilty ones. “It’s hardly a subject to joke around with, Miss Swan. I’m well aware of the lives I ruined on my path to revenge. Don’t think for one moment that I’ve forgotten.”

“I know you haven’t.”

“Then desist on making light of it.”

“I will. I’m sorry.”

Regina nodded solemnly and took a deep breath before pinching the bridge of her nose. This was proving to be a long, drawn out stay. She silently asked for Emma to be done with rescuing her back in Storybrooke so she could get on with her Mayoral dictatorship and get away from all the guilt and sorrow. There was some bliss to be had in the ignorance of her life as mayor. None of the repercussions of her journey to destroy Snow White had yet to be regretted and challenged. _Well, that wasn’t entirely true_ , she thought. She was well aware of her grief over what happened to Graham, and Henry had forced her to take a long hard look at where she had come from. Not forgetting Emma Swan and her hero-complex confusing her on a daily basis and making her think and feel far too much for the bumbling deputy. She wondered if Emma was equally confused about the chemistry between them. Regina’s gaze slipped to the place on Emma’s chest that contained her heart. Holding that beating organ in her hands would give her the answers she wanted.

Emma’s hands suddenly covered her chest. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” Regina looked up, startled.

“You have that look in your eyes, just stop it.”

“What look?”

“The one the cat has before it pounces on the poor mouse.”

“I don’t care much for rodent analogies, dear.”

“I don’t give a shit. Just keep your hands off.” Emma pulled her jacket tight around her torso as Regina’s gaze slid back to her chest. “Christ, Regina. Why don’t you ask like a normal person?”

“Ask what?”

“You’re staring at my heart as though it’s a prize. It’s obvious you want to know something, so just ask.”

“I—”

“Oh!” Emma interjected. “Unless you’re back to the crushing it to dust thing again. You’re not … are you?”

Regina smirked, and Emma stepped back eliciting a rumbling chuckle. “Relax, Miss Swan. I’ve no interest in crushing your heart.”

Emma’s shoulders softened in relief.

“At least, not today.”

Regina earned herself a glare. Smirking again, she stepped forward, revelling in the way Emma stiffened at the movement. “I’m curious, dear, is Deputy Swan attracted to the mayor?”

Emma’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“I know that,” Emma defended. “But … why?”

“Call it curiosity.”

“Umm …” Emma blushed, a sight visible in the dim light of the void.

With a triumphant grin, Regina said, “I thought so.”

Emma cleared her throat and straightened herself with confidence, giving herself a height advantage over Regina. “And you, Madame Mayor? Do you find your Deputy attractive?”

“I don’t waste time thinking such things about my staff, Miss Swan.”

Emma grinned. “Oh, but you must. You and Graham had an arrangement, didn’t you?”

“An arrangement that pre-dated the curse, you may recall.”

Emma nodded, and the amused expression on her face dropped away. “It must have been hard to end it.”

And with that, the playful bantering ended abruptly. Regina swallowed heavily and stepped back from Emma. Graham had warmed her bed intermittently for well over twenty-eight years. Ending his life, his service, had been an act of desperation and fear … one she deeply regretted. It was a moment she wished back and a guilt she wasn’t ready to face up to. It was too fresh. Without explanation, Regina turned away from Emma’s reaching arms and walked into the darkening fields. She needed space.


	7. rescue complete

Her emotions remained strangely blank, at least, the reaction of her heart remained devoid of recrimination. Silently she shed tears over the cursed hunter. She had held his heart as her possession for nearly four decades. It was a futile claim to ownership, as she was well aware of his betraying ways. First he spared Snow, then he helped David escape, and finally, Emma … he left her for Emma. The Charming’s. Graham had spited her rules and wishes for each of them. Everyone made a habit of doing that. No one fought for her, not without an advantage for their own selfish reasons. Which led her to Emma. What did she want from this? What was her end game? She found that the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t care. She’d resigned. The curse had been her last hope, and now that was nearing completion.

Regina felt a yawn overcome her. She was exhausted physically and emotionally. Looking over her shoulder from where she had left Emma, she could see a faint object in the distance. She frowned. If Emma had conjured up another pin ball game, she was going to wish she had never been born. 

Standing and creaking with stiff limbs, Regina stormed across the fields, soon coming to a surprised halt as she recognised what it was Emma had no doubt snapped into existence. 

A four-poster bed, and _Princess_ Emma was tucked into it looking peacefully at slumber.

Shaking her head, she debated waking the woman to scowl at her, but the allure of the empty side of the bed was rather strong. The soft pillows, the downy-looking quilt. Regina yawned again and decided to silently applaud Emma’s choice of furniture. Discarding the notion that she was perfectly capable of conjuring her own bed, Regina kicked off her shoes and climbed under the covers. Sleep taking her quickly into a blissful, dreamless sleep.

Dreamless though her sleep may have been, long and uninterrupted it wasn’t.

Regina jerked to attention as an arm snaked over her, a naked leg tucking up against the back of her own pair. Where were Emma’s clothes? She distinctly remembered Emma wearing jeans and a jacket earlier. Regina had climbed into bed fully-clothed, assuming Emma had done the same. More fool her.

Emma’s leg slid against hers again, and managed to tuck itself between them. Regina bit her lip at the sudden heavy awareness deep in the pit of her stomach. Memories of that sensual ghost-like encounter of Emma touching her intimately had her mouth running dry, the moisture pooling elsewhere.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so,” she mumbled as she tried to extricate herself from Emma’s embrace. Emma growled in her sleep and locked her arm as Regina moved, essentially pinning her in place. Regina turned her head to look Emma in the face and growled back, “Miss Swan! Do you mind!”

Emma’s eyes drifted open lazily and blinked a few times. “Hmm?”

“Unhand me,” Regina said with a voice deep with warning.

“Huh?” Emma lifted her head from the pillow and blinked again. Her leg shifted against Regina’s as she did so, and green eyes widened in alarm. Emma snatched her arm and leg back and blushed. “Sorry,” she croaked.

“I didn’t take you for a cuddler, Miss Swan.”

“What?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve woken with you draped over me.”

“Oh.”

“I’d appreciate it if you keep your hands to yourself for the remainder of my slumber.”

“Ah … sure.” Emma gave Regina a sheepish grin before rolling to the other side of the bed.

Regina ignored the chill that settled where Emma had been touching her and tried to reclaim her sleep. The sounds of Emma’s soft, deep breathing taunted her as the hours slipped by without rest. Her body felt restless and twitched subconsciously to the warmth residing on the other side of the bed. For the countless time, Regina growled to herself and muttered under her breath. Her awareness of the saviour was far outweighing all the reasons that a friendship shouldn’t exist, let alone a more intimate relationship. 

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Regina muttered to herself at her last errant thought. _I don’t do relationships_ , she curtly reminded herself. _I don’t do intimacy. And you’ll do well to remember Emma doesn’t either_. Regina sat up at that thought. Running her hands through her hair, gripping at the roots in frustration, she willed her thoughts to shut the hell up. _So the woman knew her better than anyone had ever done so, big deal_. Knowing someone shouldn’t lead to … _Don’t think it, Regina!_ She reprimanded herself.

“Regina?” a soft voice startled the wits out of her.

“Emma!” she screeched as she practically leapt out of bed with fright. Clutching at the quilt, Regina willed her heart to slow down.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked sleepily.

“None of your business!” 

Emma gave her that patented crazy-lady look.

Regina sighed with disgust at herself. “I can’t sleep, that’s all.”

“I noticed. You’ve been muttering to yourself for ages.”

Regina’s skin prickled. Emma had heard her? She cleared her throat and refused to respond.

“If it helps, I haven’t been able to sleep either.”

Regina shut her eyes and wished for Storybrooke to come back and help her avoid the coming embarrassment. “Oh?” she said, congratulating herself for sounding nonchalant.

“Mmm … but that may have been because you and your muttering. Tell me,” Emma said, propping herself up on her elbow. “What did I do?”

Regina felt the heat trickle up her neck and into her cheeks. “Excuse me?”

“You keep grumbling my name. It sounds like I’ve managed to piss you off. If it’s because of grabbing you earlier, I’m sor—”

“Enough apologies, Miss Swan. I’ve had quite enough of them from you to last a lifetime now,” she interrupted wearily.

“Sor—err … okay.”

Regina smiled and shook her head, then allowed her body to fall back to the mattress. A moment later she wished she hadn’t lain back down, as now Emma seemed to be looming over her, looking down at her with wide green eyes and a smile. Regina’s intake of breath was embarrassingly loud.

Emma cocked her head at the sound. After gazing into her eyes as though searching for answers, Regina felt Emma’s leg move across the sheets. As her unclothed knee made contact with Regina’s thigh, she was unable to contain the minute jolt in her leg. Moments later, as Emma raked the back of her knuckles down Regina’s arm; she couldn’t stop the soft gasp on her lips. Emma’s eyes twinkled as she reached her conclusion.

“Don’t look so smug,” Regina muttered at her, knowing her moment of denial had come and gone.

Emma grinned and continued to rub her hand against Regina’s arm.

Deciding the game was up, and she may as well give in and regain some control, Regina reached up and pulled Emma’s mouth to her own. After a shocked yelp at the game ending so abruptly, Emma melded against Regina and responded to her needy kisses.

There was no romance about their interlude, but enough passion to drown them both. Wet kisses smacked through the air as they gasped for oxygen and battled for dominance. Regina heard herself moan wantonly as Emma rolled on top of her, bringing that sinful leg between her own. Unabashedly, she arched her hips against the taut weight of it and bit down on Emma’s lower lip as the sweet friction coursed through her.

Fingers danced along Emma’s torso and gripped her panty-clad hips, pulling them down roughly and closing the gap between them. Emma dropped her weight upon her further as she clamped Regina’s own thigh between her legs. She could feel Emma’s moist heat through the material of her trousers and growled with increasing desire. As Emma began to roll her hips in a blissfully sinful dance, she relinquished control of Regina’s lips and nipped and sucked her way down her neck. Biting at the juncture between neck and shoulder, Regina gasped and arched against the touch. Emma’s smug chuckle at the reaction sent shivers through her. It also spurred her need for dominance. 

With strength that surprised Emma, Regina flipped her and pinned the woman down by her hips and wrists. 

“My turn,” she purred, delighting in the way Emma’s eyes dilated at her words. Capturing Emma’s mouth in a blazing kiss, she plundered the woman’s mouth as her hand skidded down the length of her, fingers finding their way beneath the tank top, and nails scraping a path upwards. Emma fidgeted beneath the touch and made a move to break herself from Regina’s grip. Biting down and dragging out Emma’s lower lip, Regina let go and said, “Stay.” With a firm squeeze of Emma’s wrists below her hand, Emma narrowed her eyes.

“Make me.”

Regina arched an eyebrow and accepted the challenge. With her hand still positioned under Emma’s top, she took hold of a peaked nipple and rolled it firmly between the pads of her thumb and forefinger. Emma gasped and bucked in response. Regina created a rhythm of pinching and releasing the nipple, relishing the way Emma bit down on her lower lip and began shifting her head side to side.

“Stay,” she whispered firmly, releasing the hold of Emma’s wrists so she could duck her head and pull the tortured nipple between her lips, teeth grazing the hardened bud teasingly. 

“God … Regina,” Emma mumbled above her. Breaking Regina’s orders, she brought her hands down and tangled them through the short brown locks, encouraging the ministrations at her breasts. 

Regina smiled into Emma’s skin and flicked the nipple with her tongue before moving to the other breast. Eliciting several moans and gasps from Emma, Regina soon brought her attention north, exposing the expanse of flesh at Emma’s neck with a firm tug of the woman’s hair. Burying in her hand deep into the blonde curls, Regina ravished Emma’s slender neck with her teeth and well-placed sucks. Tormented skin, bruised and discoloured, was calmed with soft laps of a gentle tongue and whispers of her lips. Shifting her legs so they lay between Emma’s, Regina began a slow rocking motion that stirred and livened the need within her. Emma’s contented moans of pleasure and rocking hips indicating her own satisfaction.

Resting her weight on outstretched arms, Regina concentrated on the rhythm they were maintaining between them. Emma’s eyes looked dark and dangerous as nimble fingers made short work of ridding Regina of her shirt. With her torso exposed, Regina shuddered as Emma’s fingers danced across her stomach and traced the outline of her bra. Thumbs brushed across nipples straining to be released of their bindings and Regina’s eyes fluttered shut on a deep moan at the sensation.

With disorientating speed, she found herself flat on her back, with Emma’s face buried in her chest. Unhooking the bra with a hand pushed behind her back, Emma took advantage of the loosened garment and devoured the pink skin pebbled on each creamy breast. Lost in the suckling of Emma’s mouth against her, Regina inhaled sharply as she found Emma’s hand slipping below her unclasped pants, and the woman’s fingers flittering dangerously across her lace underwear. Sensations overwhelmed her as Emma rubbed the pads of her fingers over the hard nub covered by her lingerie.

“Emma …” Regina heard herself breathe hoarsely as those fingers tucked themselves underneath the material, finding slippery need below.

“Oh, God, Regina,” Emma groaned as her fingers slid with ease across the soaked folds. Taking Regina’s mouth against her own, Emma delved between the curtains of Regina’s sex and pushed herself inside. Bucking against the welcome intrusion, Regina sucked Emma’s lip into her mouth and bit on it in satisfaction. 

Whimpers and moans filled the air as Emma continued to slide in and out of Regina, using her hips to push against the back of her hand. Raising a leg, Regina found Emma clamp herself against it and dampened the material with her own bucking desire. Nothing but the rushing, heady need of climax consumed their next thoughts. Slick and sweaty, their partially clad torsos glided together. Hips arched and rolled in a consuming rhythm of passion, and mouths remained fastened together with wet, desperate kisses.

A thumb brushed over the engorged nub above Regina’s entrance and she cried out into Emma’s mouth as her walls began to shudder and clench. Curling her fingers, Emma rolled her hips with increasing need and Regina found herself arching off the bed, head tipped back, Emma’s name torn from her lips. Emma rubbed furiously against her leg and growled her release into Regina’s neck as she shuddered and bucked in her own release.

Before either of them could make sense of their world again, the ground rushed away from them.

###

Stumbling in pre-climactic confusion, Emma and Regina locked gazes.

“Emma …” Regina panted, still riding the waves of her orgasm. 

“God … Regina …” Emma rushed back on a breath, her face visibly flushed and hungry.

Legs wobbly and incapable collapsed beneath them and wrenched one another from desperately grasping fingers.

“No!” Regina heard herself say before she blinked and looked at Sherriff Swan with a frown. “My ankle! Set me down gently!”

“Seriously! You’re complaining about _how_ I save your life?”

The fire truck pulled alongside them in a wail of sirens. “The firemen are here,” Regina pointed out needlessly. “It’s not like our lives were in danger.”

“Fine.” Emma coughed, grimacing with the way the smoke burned at her throat and more than a little furious with Regina ‘how-dare-you-save-my-life’ Mills. “Next time I’ll just – just … you know what? Next time I’ll do the same thing. And the time after that. Because that is what decent human beings do. That’s what _good_ people do.” With those parting words of wisdom, Emma stalked off, wanting to create distance between the Mayor and herself, muttering under her breath the whole time. An oddly needy ache shivered through her skin as she moved away from the mayor. It was almost uncomfortable enough to make her turn around and step inside Regina’s personal space, as if that would be the balm to cure her itch. Halting at her wayward thoughts, she turned back and looked at the mayor. Those infinitesimally deep brown eyes were on hers and looked to be searching for an answer to a question that plagued them both. _What was happening to them?_

The inevitable gawkers arrived wanting to see the carnage for themselves, and Emma found herself pulled into a conversation by a wide-eyed Mary Margaret that broke her gaze from the mayor’s. 

“Emma! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?” she asked far too eagerly. Obviously Storybrooke was lacking in adrenaline-pumping events.

“Nothing much. Regina and I walked out of a fire. No big deal.” She shrugged her shoulders and glanced over to the mayor. An oxygen mask was being put reluctantly on her face. The expression of bewilderment of a few moments ago had been replaced by the classic mayoral mask of loathing. Emma grinned wryly imagining the sharp words of recrimination being suffered by the medics.

“Emma!” Ruby yelled as she joined them; Archie and Granny hot on her heels. “They say you saved Mayor Mills.”

Emma shrugged again and stuck her hands deep into her pockets. She was uncomfortable with all the attention. Attention that was becoming far too frequent for her liking. Suppressing the urge to flee and grant herself some much-needed breathing space, she heard Henry’s young voice behind her as he enthusiastically spoke with the fire fighters. 

“Did Emma really rescue my Mum?” he asked in an awed voice. Emma sighed as his enthusiasm and looked past Mary Margaret to the stretcher Regina had been strapped to. She watched as the woman, exasperated, tore off the mask and thrust her hands out defensively. It seems the mayor was sick of all the fuss as well.

“Did you really rescue Regina?” Mary Margaret said, her voice reaching an interesting pitch. 

“She did! The fireman said!” Henry said, joining the group in a rush.

Emma just smiled benignly and watched as the group disappeared into action. Apparently rescuing the mayor would go a long way in winning her the Sherriff’s election. Emma gave Regina one last look, making sure the woman was okay, before turning her attention back to her son.

“Henry, go and make sure your Mum’s okay.”

“But …” he looked past Emma and inspected his mother. “She looks fine.”

“Henry!”

“What!”

Emma crouched down and looked into his exasperated face. “Your mum hurt herself, Henry. She might be feeling scared, or in pain. Go and look after her.”

“But—”

“Henry, it’s not a suggestion. Now … go,” she said standing and tussling his hair affectionately.

Henry’s shoulders sagged. “Fine,” he muttered as he left, leaving Emma to look down at the debris in the fire, and more specifically, at the charred rolled up rag in the pile. Someone had deliberately risked the life of herself and the mayor. Rage boiled in her at the thought of someone going after Regina. _She’s been hurt enough, don’t people see that!_ Emma’s eyes widened and she gasped. _Where had that thought come from?_

 


	8. taste the forbidden fruit

It was when Regina touched Daniel’s ring and watched his familiar image that she noticed something that made her blood run cold. A cuff, faint but visible, was circling her wrist.

“What the hell?” she cried, dropping the ring and promptly forgetting about the cuff.

Snatching the ring from the floor and stuffing it into her pocket, Regina stormed from the mansion to find Jefferson. Rumple, the devious imp, was practically rubbing his hands together with glee that the curse was beginning to unravel, but Regina was going to give him no such satisfaction. So to put her plan into effect, she needed the realm-jumping Jefferson and the last vestige of magic she had left.

*****

The next time she triggered Daniel’s image in that simple gold band it happened again as she stood beside Jefferson and the hat. She had pulled Daniel’s ring from her pocket and there, again, the cuff shone on her arm. Regina frowned at it. 

“Nice bracelet,” Jefferson commented.

“What …?” Regina stared at it. Familiar thoughts and feelings burned through her wrist at its presence. Thoughts surrounding a specific person. Emma Swan. The longer she looked at the cuff, the more feelings of warm and peace concerning the woman began to grow. Jefferson ended the vision of the bracelet and took Daniel’s ring from her fingers. Shaking off the strange feelings swirling in her chest pertaining to the woman she was planning to poison, she concentrated on the hat and the apple it was going to procure from her. No one gets away with 

*****

“Sherriff?” Regina hadn’t expected the woman’s presence in her home. Not before she was ready, at least. Emma Swan, abductor of son’s, was about to pay dearly for her dalliance in kidnapping.

“We need to talk,” Emma said, her chest heaving and expression looking ominous.

Regina frowned. _Curious_. “Yes, I imagine we do. I was just about to call you.” Emma stepped past her, leaving Regina to raise her eyebrows and close the door. _Make yourself at home, why don’t you_ , she thought, shutting the door and tracing Emma’s movements. Shuffling about in the foyer, the woman looked uncomfortable and agitated. Taking the two steps to the main foyer, Regina faced the woman. “I believe you came to see me?” she said, wanting to hurry this along.

“Right. Look. This isn’t easy. I think that this … whatever is between us needs to end.”

Regina cocked her head as a strange pull at her chest reacted to those words. Squashing that feeling down, she said, “At last, something we can agree on.”

“I want to make a deal with you about Henry.”

“I’m not making any deals with you,” Regina said, almost breaking into her patented Evil Queen chuckle. _Who did Emma think she was!_

“I’m leaving town.”

Regina blinked and whispered, “ _What?_ ” _That was certainly unexpected._

“This … what we’re doing is a problem, and I’m _going_ to go, but I have conditions. I still want to see Henry. I get to visit and spend time … whatever.”

Crossing her arms, Regina said, “But you’re still in his life.”

“We both know the world where I’m no longer in his life no longer exists, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.”

The bell on Regina’s oven began to beep and a smile crept over Regina’s face. “You’re right,” she said to Emma. _But I have a way of changing that for good._ “Do you mind following me for a moment? I have something in the oven.” Pulling the poisoned apple turnover from the oven a moment later, Regina turned to Emma and said, “So what are you proposing?”

“I don’t know. We’ll work something out as we go.”

“But Henry is _my_ son?”

Emma took her time, but she soon said, “Yeah.”

Victorious, and with the Saviour about to flee to who-knows-where, Regina called out, “Miss Swan?”

“What?”

“A little something for the road?”

Emma looked at the baked pastry on the kitchen counter. “Ah … thanks. What is it?”

“One of my famous turnovers. An old recipe … but delicious,” Regina smiled at Sherriff Swan as she clamped the lid shut on the container holding an apple turnover she had spent the afternoon baking with precision.

Holding the dish out to Miss Swan, the woman hesitated and put her hands on the container. Their fingers brushed together in a barely noticeable touch.

###

“You!” Regina lunged for Emma’s heart, feeling her hand delve into the woman’s chest.

“Regina! Dammit!” Emma screamed back at her, pushing her own hand into the chest of the woman that constantly confounded her.

Together, their backs arched as a bright light exploded between them. 

Thoughts and memories swirled together in a dizzying rush _._ Everything that had happened the last time they shared memories crashed on them both. For Emma, the experience included Regina’s thoughts and feelings since that first night in Storybrooke. _Regina’s suspicions. Her set ups. The surprise at Emma coming to her rescue. The wrath and murderous response to cutting the limb off the apple tree. The manipulation behind David Nolan’s reintroduction to society. The horror of knowing Henry’s life was in danger at the mine collapse. The comfort she sought and received in Emma as they worked to save her son. The need to be close to Emma. The relief when Henry was saved. The cool brush off to save face as strange waves of warmth from her heart threatened to confuse her. Her callous and calculated desire to rid the town of Emma’s presence. Graham. That awful moment where she held his heart in her hands. The voices conflicting in her head about whether or not to crush the heart or not. The utter fear that ruled her. The overwhelming sorrow that washed through her when she realised his heart had crumbled in her hands. The funeral. The grieving. The regret. The election for Sherriff. The fire and utter shock that Emma chose to save her. The blossoming feelings she tried to deny. The guilt of a life built on the foundation of evil. The acceptance that death will end the madness. Emma’s fight for her, making her promise to survive for Henry and herself. Making love to Emma. A begrudging respect for the woman that saved her life. The fallout of Graham’s death. The grief they both shared and suffered in silence. Kathryn’s want to leave town. The consequences if she did. The cover up that was necessary. Mary Margaret’s set-up as a murderer. Sidney’s role as spy. Sidney setting Emma up to expose Regina of a false crime. Regina’s triumph and manipulation. Operation Cobra. Regina’s involvement in Kathryn’s disappearance. Emma threatening to take Henry away from Regina. Regina trying to convince Gold to help her with the curse. Magic. Magic in Storybrooke. The hat. Daniel’s ring. Those strange feelings about Emma. The poisoned apple. The poisoned apple turnover. Emma saying goodbye. The strange pang of pain that moment induced…_

For Regina, she saw everything from the last moment she held Emma’s heart. What surprised her most of all, was the burgeoning feelings of attraction the woman was nurturing both in Regina’s heart and at home in Storybrooke. And how those tender feelings were slowly ripped apart as Sidney set her up over the corruption charges she raised against the mayor, and at the moment Regina’s involvement in Mary Margaret’s set up were brought to Emma’s attention. Emma’s anger was unsettling. Several memories stood out: _The love Emma felt as she shared her body with Regina. The need for her. The pain that the moment was over as they were returned to the scene of the fire._ _Jefferson. Emma’s capture at the hands of the mad man. August trying to convince Emma the curse is real. Emma kidnapping Henry. Emma returning Henry. Emma’s conversation with Archie about her influence in Henry’s life. Emma deciding to leave and her heartache at having to leave Henry behind … the loss of studying the expressive brown eyes of Henry’s mother …_

As the memories ceased, Regina and Emma were blasted apart by booming flash of light, sending them flying ungracefully through the air to be left sprawling on the dying grass below them. 

“I suggest … Miss Swan … that you don’t do that again.” Regina groaned as she got to her feet.

“Damn straight,” Emma groaned as she sat herself upright. Staring across at the woman she now remembered making love to, she whispered, “You’re trying to poison me?”

“You took away my son!” Regina spat back with significant venom.

###

“Thank you,” Emma said as she took the container from Regina’s outstretched hand. She held the gaze of those mesmerising brown eyes as if trying to brand their image in her mind. Those eyes had always expressed so much, and most prominent of expressions, was the love she had for her son, Henry. With a sad smile, Emma turned away from Regina and left for good.

*****

Seeing Henry collapse was the worst nightmare she never knew she had. Desperately she clawed at his unresponsive body, screaming his name, trying anything to wake him. The paramedics came and wheeled him out of the apartment. She never left his side. Panic set in. What if … what if …

 _No, it won’t come to that!_ She screamed in her head. “Do something!” She yelled at Dr Whale instead.

“I need something to _treat_.” The infuriating man told her. “And right now, there is no explanation. It’s like …”

Emma listened to the man’s whining as she tipped the contents of Henry’s bag on an empty bed. She stared at it, hoping that an answer would leap out at her. Anything to suggest what had poisoned her son. _Anything._ Her eyes fell to the book. _The_ book. Fairy tales. 

“Magic …” Emma whispered as she reached for the volume of stories. As she gripped the book, a series of images flashed through her mind. No, not images … memories. _Her mother, her father, the sword fight, the cupboard …_

 _Holy crap!_ Emma silently screamed as the images stopped, leaving her panting and dazed. _It’s true?_

The click of heels met her ears. “Where’s my son!” A distraught voice called as someone entered the room.

Emma’s eyes glazed over before fixing with rage. “You did this,” she muttered to herself.

Turning, she gripped the arm of the woman that had killed her son and dragged her forcefully from the room.

###

THUMP!

Both women landed in a heap on the dying grass of Regina’s heart.

“You killed him!” Emma screamed the instant she got to her feet. “You killed my son!” She lunged at Regina and fixed her hands around the woman’s slender throat. “He ate your poisoned apple!”

“Em … ma. No. I didn’t … know … please …” Regina pleaded below her clenching fingers. She shut her eyes, hoping Emma would stop, but at the same time, wishing for an end to the nightmare of her life. 

With a deadly growl, Emma clenched one more time before pushing her harshly away from her. “You did this! Why!” she howled inches away from Regina’s face.

“The mayor was trying to get rid of you,” Regina sobbed. Her son was in mortal danger. She didn’t want to be here. She needed to be there, to fix this somehow, and to save him. “Oh, Henry,” she sobbed, her hand covering her mouth as she crumpled to the grass. “No.”

Emma’s voice wavered as she said quietly. “What’s going to happen to him?”

Regina shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked up into Emma’s devastated eyes. “Oh, Emma. I don’t know. What have I done?” she said, her face falling into her hands as she let her grief consume her. Her chest heaved and ached as her guilt and shame wracked her. She wasn’t this person anymore. She didn’t want to be the Queen. Here, in her heart, there was proof of that. Evidence that she was trying to change. Gone was the darkness, a soft light taking its place. Why couldn’t she take the light with her when they left his void? If she could, her son would be safe. Alive. And Emma … she wouldn’t be trying to kill the woman that saved her heart.

Emma slid down beside her, wrapping an arm over Regina’s shoulders and resting her cheek on Regina’s hair. Heavy tears that weren’t her own dripped into Regina’s lap, and turning to face the woman grieving for their son, she wrapped her arms around her and clung on tight. Together they cried and wished that what they found in this place would stay with them.

*****

“I believe,” Emma said quietly as silence took the place of the tears that ceased to fall. 

Puffy-eyed and exhausted, Regina pulled her head off Emma’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “What?”

“I believe.” Emma repeated. “Just before you walked into Henry’s hospital room, I picked up his fairy tale book and all these images hit me. I saw Snow … Charming … swords and the cupboard. I believe.”

“You know who you are?” Regina said, almost in awe. It was a concept she herself struggled with on a daily basis. Hourly, if she was to be honest. Living dual lives and battling old misconducts whilst trying to love and raise a son had her questioning _everything_. Essentially, that constant doubt did nothing but fuel her paranoia.

Emma nodded to her question. “I’m the Saviour, and now the Emma in Storybrooke knows it.”

Regina smiled at Emma. “I’m glad.”

“You are?”

Regina nodded and brought her hand to Emma’s cheek. “I’m so tired, Emma. Every time we come to this place, I see how twisted I’ve become. I’ve killed my son.” Regina’s head rolled forward on her neck and she held back a fresh wave of sobs.

“Hey now, we don’t know that yet. We’ll find a way. We _have_ to.” Emma ran a hand through Regina’s hair, resting it on her neck and rubbing soothing circles on her skin. Her other arm squeezed Regina close.

“I don’t want to be the Evil Queen anymore. I want to stay here. I want to be free,” Regina said in a small voice. It sounded so alien to her ears.

Emma had no response to that, but a physical one. She held Regina close and as time lengthened, they found themselves tangled together on the grass staring at one another.

Emma reached over and tucked a wayward strand of hair from Regina’s cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, breaking the silence that had strung out for hours.

Regina smiled, feeling the words warm her from the inside out. Emma’s hand remained on her face and lightly traced her features. 

“So beautiful,” she whispered again.

Regina squeezed Emma’s other hand that she had tangled her fingers in, feeling Emma return the pressure. Lying here like they were, gazing at one another lazily, reminded Regina of the time they spent here exploring each other’s bodies. This is how she had wanted that experience to end, and not by the rude introduction of Storybrooke back into their realities. She remembered how desperate she had been to control her emotions; to not give in to the physical needs that grew every time she shared her heart with Emma. She also remembered her desperation once she began to touch Emma, and once Emma began to touch her. It was unbridled in its need. Never had she been close to so much passion. Never had she wanted to give so much of herself away. Emma had broken through every barrier she had and had treated her fragile heart with such tender care. Such … love.

Regina let out a rush of air as the thought crossed her mind. Her gaze was lost inside the green of Emma’s eyes, and focusing with a blink, she realised Emma was looking back at her with a breadth of understanding that startled her.

“I love you,” Emma breathed.

Regina couldn’t help the physical jolt that passed through her body at those words. They couldn’t possibly be true. Could they? She knew from holding Emma’s heart earlier that they were. In fact, she could feel the love the woman radiated. But surely Emma had to know by now how truly broken she was. How completely corrupted her heart had become. How utterly incapable she was of returning those feelings.

Emma smiled as Regina tried to formulate a response. Fingers slid across her jaw and Emma placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “It’s okay, Regina. I’m not waiting to hear anything in return. I just needed you to know how I feel.”

Regina’s jaw opened and shut as words continued to elude her.

Emma’s hand dropped down over Regina’s heart. “I know from seeing in here that you care for me in some way. I know that you’re confused and feel that you don’t deserve a shot at happiness. I’m here to remind you that you do. You may never be able to redeem yourself of your past, Regina, but you can definitely start over and makes things right where you can. Forgive yourself.”

A tear dropped from Regina’s eye and Emma reached out to bat it away with the pad of her thumb. 

Then the moment was over as the ground rushed away.

###

Regina flew across the room and slammed into a series of rolling shelves. _Damn, that felt good,_ Emma thought to herself. Moving across the room to execute more pain, she gripped the mayor by the lapels and swung her around, snapping her cruelly against the lockers. 

###

“I’m tired,” Regina said again as they returned to her heart.

“So am I.”

“We have to stop this. We need to remember.”

“Then we will.”

###

“Don’t let go of me,” Regina pleaded to Emma the moment they returned from Regina’s heart to find Emma about to push herself off of Regina; her back pressed against the lockers. “End this!”

Emma, still aware with the memories of her trip to Regina’s heart intact, she leaned forward and whispered, “Remember that I love you. No matter what happens.”

“And I love you …” Regina breathed, eliciting a smile from Emma.

Emma stroked Regina’s cheek tenderly before bringing their lips together, not willing to waste another moment of awareness.

It was their first kiss since the night they made love on a four-poster bed deep in Regina’s heart. More importantly, it was their first kiss in Storybrooke. Their first kiss in corporeal form. Their first union as Evil Queen and Saviour. Their first kiss after exposing their feelings.

They moaned together as a force ripped through them, the light spreading out in ripples and flooding the town with a different kind of awareness.

Emma slid her tongue from Regina’s mouth and smiled. “I liked that. I liked it a lot.”

Regina grinned indulgently back. “Do you think it worked?”

Tension wracked Emma’s face as she took a deep breath and stepped back. The moment she stopped touching Regina, she blinked and frowned. “You! That apple turnover you gave me, Henry ate it!” Emma screamed at her. Grabbing hold of Regina’s shoulders and slamming her back against the lockers.

“Em—Miss Swan?” Regina said. Confused. She had witnessed Emma’s shift in consciousness as a white flash tore the memories of Regina’s heart from her mind. Regina sighed, waiting for her memories to wipe also. A tear tracked its way down her cheek as she resigned to their fate of ignorance.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

Regina frowned as she realised with sudden dread that Emma was touching her and they hadn’t fallen into the cavern of her heart; that they had stayed in their reality. 

“Isn’t it!” Emma yelled, punctuating her words with another shove against the lockers.

Trying to understand Emma’s line of questioning as her mind reeled, Regina muttered, “What are you talking about?”

“It’s _true_ isn’t it! All of it?”

Brown eyes stared into the accusing green ones and almost sobbed with grief. Their kiss had worked, only she was the only one that remembered. Regina’s face crumpled. Emma didn’t know her. She was touching her, talking to her, glaring at her with those distrustful green eyes, and she had no idea who Regina really was. “Yes,” Regina said on a sob. 

“I was leaving town! Why couldn’t you leave things alone?”

“Please, you have to understand, I didn’t mean this. It wasn’t … I …” How was she ever going to explain to Emma that she was no longer the Evil Queen? That Emma had saved her heart. Made her change. Fallen in love with her. “I’m sorry,” she managed to whisper as her heart broke under Emma’s glare.

“Damn you, Regina. You fix this. You wake him up!”

“I can’t,” she said, her lip trembling violently.

“Don’t you have … magic?” Emma asked, her voice sounding strained as she uttered the words.

“No. The apple was the last of it.” Regina covered her mouth with her hand. She had hoped that sharing a kiss with Emma would change the fate of Storybrooke. Would break the curse. Would take them to a place that would ensure Henry’s survival. Here, in Storybrooke, there wasn’t enough magic to sustain his curse. “Oh, God. Henry,” she said and collapsed to the floor.

Emma dropped down beside her. “Regina. No. We’ll find a way. We _have_ to. He’s our son.”

 _Ever the saviour_ , Regina thought sadly. She nodded and reached out to take Emma’s hand. It was a comfort she was familiar with, but one that Emma did not remember. The woman stiffened under her fingers, unaccustomed to being touched by her in Storybrooke. Giving Emma’s hand a quick squeeze, Regina removed hers, feeling the loss of Emma’s touch keenly.

“Mayor Mills!” The door to the store room opened with a bang and Dr Whale charged in, the confusion at finding them on the floor evident on his face. “Emma. He woke up!”

The two women blinked at one another in shock.

“Henry!” they said as one and ran from the room to his bedside.

“Henry? Sweetheart?” Regina said softly as she brushed a hand through his hair.

“Henry?” Emma asked.

“Hey,” the boy croaked from the bed. “What happened?”

“You got sick, sweetheart,” Regina answered.

Henry’s little face screwed up in a frown. “No … no … _you_ poisoned the turnover.”

Regina blinked in shock. “I …”

“Hey, kid. You shouldn’t accuse your mum of—”

“Yes, Henry. I did.” Regina interjected, deciding it was high time she stopped lying to her son.

Emma and Henry looked back at her with identical expressions of shock. Henry, because she had finally admitted her ties to the Evil Queen, and Emma because she was about to provide her with an out … one she refused to take.

Rubbing her forehead to brace herself, Regina looked to her son and confessed. “Henry, you were right. I’m sorry I lied to you for so long. But … things changed, Henry. I don’t want to be the Evil Queen any longer. I haven’t wanted to be her for a very long time. I just didn’t remember.”

“Remember?” Henry looked bewildered. “Remember what?”

“The light that had touched my heart.” Regina couldn’t help but glance over at the woman that caused the warmth inside her, a smile tickling at her mouth. Emma’s reaction was typical of her absentee memories – the woman looking back at her with wide-eyed shock that morphed quickly into a confused frown.

Henry’s brow furrowed with questions he wasn’t sure how to ask. That had to have been the most cryptic and confusing answer he’d ever heard. Shaking his head and looked instead at Emma. “See, I told you my mum was the Evil Queen,” he said, any traces of venom or gloating absent from his words.

Regina took his hand. Her son sounded deflated. Lost. His ideals of glorified battles of good versus evil ending in a belly flop of anticlimax.

“I know, Henry. I believe,” Emma said, smiling down at him and ruffling his hair affectionately.

Henry gnawed at his bottom lip in thought. “Wait … I was cursed, wasn’t I?” he looked to his adoptive mother in question.

Regina withdrew her gaze, head dropping guiltily. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“Then … then how am I awake? Who woke me?” He looked expectantly at Emma, who shrugged.

“Don’t ask me, Kid. I was busy freaking out when Dr Whale said you woke up.”

Henry turned his attention to Regina. “Mum?”

Fidgeting uncharacteristically, she replied, “I suspect, dear, that the curse didn’t take. There’s not enough magic in this world to sustain it.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. Patting his hand absently, Regina looked across at Emma and flinched a little to see the woman staring at her intently. Emma’s expression was passive and thoughtful, like she was trying to recall something that kept slipping from her grasp, but her eyes were intense flames of green, boring into brown ones without reprieve. Regina didn’t know how to break the gaze she was trapped in and found the breath sucked from her lungs. Emma’s focus was mesmerising. Henry’s young voice saved her from buckling at the knees.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking between his mothers curiously.

Emma snapped to attention, a rush of heat crawling up her neck and warming her cheeks. _What was wrong with her?_ _She’d just been staring at the mayor with … with what? A look of … hell, she had no idea._ Clearing her throat, Emma bumbled out, “Oh … ah …” _Smooth, Swan. Real smooth_. Making a fatal error in judgement, Emma flicked her eyes back over to Regina to find the woman staring at her with a smirk on her lips and a meticulous eyebrow raised in query. Snatching her eyes away, Emma found Henry looking at her with a similarly curious expression. _Well this is uncomfortable_.

Regina hid a smile.

“Madame Mayor,” Dr Whale stated as he returned to Henry’s bedside. Emma could have kissed the man for saving her from further embarrassment. Then, suddenly realising the man had slept with her mother – Snow freaking White – Emma physically recoiled from him, earning an amused twitch of Regina’s eyebrow. 

“I’d like to run a few tests on Henry, perhaps keep him overnight considering his unexplained unconsciousness,” Dr Whale continued.

“Whatever you believe is necessary, doctor,” Regina replied curtly. “Henry, I’ll be back in a moment.” She smiled at her son and patted his hand before looking over at Emma and beckoning her to follow with the crook of her finger.

Entering the store room of their previous vigorous encounter, Regina tried to squash the nerves making her hands tremble. Surely there was no way Emma would believe the truth? That they had forged a bond of love and understanding so deep that Regina already mourned the loss of the woman, and was cursed with memories and feelings that were no longer mutual. Or were they? That look in her eyes earlier was so familiar; it was the way she looked at her when they were in her heart. The way she gazed at her as they made love. Regina shivered.

“You okay?” Emma asked, reaching over and touching Regina’s shoulder.

And in the blink of an eye, they were falling again. Tumbling down a never-ending abyss before landing with a bounce. Then another. And another.

 


	9. the carnival

“What the hell!” Emma cried out as she stopped bouncing. “Why the hell am I on a bouncing castle!” she screamed indignantly at Regina, whose hair was tussled and face thunderous.

“Miss Swan!” she screamed. “You’ve turned my heart into an amusement park! Explain yourself!”

“Turned … what? Your heart? How—?” Emma shook her head in utter confusion. “Where have you taken me?” she asked.

“Taken _you_?” Regina said with a dangerous glare. “You and your incessant touching brought us here, or do you not recall that fun little fact of life?”

“I … huh?” Emma looked impossibly more puzzled.

Regina stiffened and her face fell with disappointment. “You … don’t remember?”

“Remember what! What the hell are you on about?” The voice Regina answered her with sent chills through Emma’s skin. It was the saddest she’d ever heard her.

“Never mind, dear.”

“Oh. But … well … umm … right then.” Emma spluttered, realising she wasn’t equipped to handle a depressed-sounding Regina; angry, sarcastic, frantic … yes. But depressed … well that went beyond her job description.

“Articulate, as usual,” Regina muttered as she climbed off the bright red and yellow fairground amusement with as much grace and poise as she could muster.

Which, if Emma was honest, was significantly more than hers. With a slide, she hit the ground with more speed than she intended and tripped, landing flat on her stomach. “Oof!”

Regina clucked her tongue somewhere above her.

Pulling herself up off the ground, Emma looked around. This place felt … familiar to her. It was bright and sunny. Fluffy white clouds floated across the sky as they watched over the fair below them. Turning on the spot, Emma took in the sights and sounds of the amusement park. It was full of atmosphere, but not people. Full of the smells of the carnival, but no popcorn or hot dog stands in sight. Everything looked used but untouched in a confusing confliction. All the games you’d expect at a fair stood in neat rows awaiting the next contestant to knock down the skittles, or shoot the ducks with rubber pellets.

Taking a few steps and ignoring the huffing of Regina behind her, Emma took in the view previously blocked by the bouncy castle and gasped. Broad open fields of grass, sliced by a trickling stream, led her eye to the forest at the edge of the clearing. Beyond that, ominous dark mountains loomed where dark clouds had gathered and swirled.

It was a curious contrast. The happiness and nonsense of the fairground sitting adjacent to the peace and tranquillity of a springtime field, and all being watched over by a distant unsettling darkness.

It gave Emma chills deep through her bones. Wrapping her arms around herself as if needing protection from the darkness on the horizon, she felt herself shudder.

Regina stepped beside her. “Emma?”

“Where are we?” Emma asked on a nervous breath.

“I believe, Miss Swan, we’re inside your heart.”

And with a whoosh, their time ended.

###

Emma’s hand recoiled from Regina’s shoulder. “Holy shit.”

“Emma?” Regina turned, frowning at the woman with concern. 

“Did you feel th—you just called me Emma?”

“I—pardon?”

“Oh … umm … ” Emma shook her head. The images where so crisp and real. Regina and herself standing in a fairground staring at the dark horizon talking about her heart. _Her heart!_ And then like sand sliding through her fingers, her memories fell away.

Regina’s frown deepened. “Miss Swan?”

“I … uh. Never mind,” Emma said, wondering where her mind had just disappeared to. “Umm …”

Regina rolled her eyes. “Your continued ability to harness the English language astounds me, Miss Swan.”

Emma grunted. “Umm … you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. About the curse. I want to break it.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m always serious, dear.”

“Oh, that I know.” Emma faded out muttering something about a misplaced broomstick.

Regina’s eyebrow arched dangerously.

Swallowing hard, Emma said hurriedly. “So how do we break it?”

“That is a very good question. It seems True Love’s kiss was unable to manage it.”

“True Love’s kiss? Between who?”

Regina straightened her back and lifted her chin. “Why Snow White and Prince Charming … of course.” _They had kissed, hadn’t they? Yes_. She vividly recalled their public make-out session outside Granny’s diner.

“Oh.” Emma chewed on her bottom lip. 

A lip Regina couldn’t seem to take her eyes off. Their kiss should have ended this madness. The pulse of light that radiated from them was all the evidence she needed that what she felt for Emma was truer than she could ever have imagined. Tears pricked at her eyes as the knowledge she’d been given a second chance overwhelmed her.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Emma asked.

“Pardon, dear?” Regina said, flicking a non-existent lock of hair from her eyes with a shake of her head.

Emma’s intense green eyes looked her over. “Are … you … okay?” she asked slowly.

“Of course.”

“We nearly lost Henry back there, and that was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced. Those kind of emotions don’t just vanish when he wakes up.”

“I’m well aware of that, Miss Swan.” 

Emma stared at her with eyes that seemed to dare her to crack. Uncomfortable with showing even the slightest hint of vulnerability, especially here, in reality, Regina slid a mask across her features. It didn’t go unnoticed by her that Emma’s eyes flickered with disappointment as she shut herself off.

“Okay … so … True Love is out then?” Emma muttered. Regina’s traitorous heart fluttered causing her to squeak strangely which in turn attracted Emma’s curious gaze. Emma tilted her head and said, “Why do I get the feeling I’m missing something here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

Emma rolled her eyes before running an agitated hand through her hair. “Fine. Whatever. So … breaking the curse. If True Love didn’t do it, what will?”

“Gold.”

“Gold? As in the precious metal? How—”

“No, Emma. Gold … as in Rumplestiltskin. We should go and talk to _Mr_ Gold.”

“Oh?” Emma wasn’t sure what confused her more: Mr Gold’s involvement or the fact Regina just addressed her by her given name for the second time in Storybrooke history.

“It’s his curse, so perhaps he has an idea of how to break it.”

“ _His_ curse? But I thought—”

“He weaved the curse, Miss Swan, I simply enacted it.”

“Oh. Well … oh! He knows? He’s aware?”

“Aware of what?”

“I mean, he’s not stuck in limbo-land with a false identity, is he?”

Regina blinked with Emma’s convoluted question and hoped she’d understood correctly when she answered, “Mr Gold wasn’t cursed like the remainder of the town, if that’s what you’re attempting to ask?”

“Does anyone else know? Apart from you and Gold.”

“Jefferson,” Regina said quietly, feeling a pang of uncomfortable guilt at his fate.

“Jefferson! The hat guy?”

“The mad hatter to be precise.”

“From Wonderland?”

Regina nodded.

Emma shook her head in shock. “He tried to convince me that magic was real. Him and … August!”

Regina frowned before following Emma’s line of thought. “Ah, of course, Pinocchio.”

Emma groaned and grabbed the sides of her head.

“Emma?”

The woman in question threw her hands down in obvious frustration. “Look, let’s just get this over with shall we? It’s giving me a headache.” Regina arched an eyebrow at her, increasing Emma’s agitation. “Come on, _Your Majesty_ , let’s break this stupid curse.”

“It was hardly _stupid_ , Miss Swan! The curse itself was magnificent in its intricacy. It’s delicateness. One wrong move on my part, and existence itself would have ended.”

“Whatever.” Emma walked away and made a beeline for Henry’s bed. “We’ll be back soon, kid. Your mum and I are going to break the curse.”

“You are!” Henry looked as though he couldn’t decide between being excited or disbelieving. His eyes fell across to his adoptive mother as she approached the bed from the other side.

“Yes, Henry. We are. Miss Swan and I are going to put an end to it.”

“If we figure out how,” Emma said, gnawing on her bottom lip.

“True Love,” Henry said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Won’t work. Snow …” Emma faded out. 

Regina smiled wryly at the look in those puzzled green eyes. Like a repeat of the last time Emma fully realised who her mother was, she had turned into a comatose statue again.

“Miss Swan, focus,” Regina said, clicking her fingers in front of Emma’s face.

“Yeah, yeah, you said that last time,” Emma swatted the hand away without thinking before, copying Regina’s sudden change in composure, she froze. “What? Wait. What?”

Regina jolted back to life. “Miss Swan?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. Her face faltering only slightly at the next words of the saviour.

“I … sorry … déjà vu.” Emma shook it off. “Where was I?”

“Mary Margaret and David Nolan, they kissed didn’t they?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, kid. And it didn’t break the curse.”

“It’s because they don’t know who they are. They don’t believe.”

Emma scoffed. “Making them believe they’re fairy tale characters is going to be impossible.”

“But you believe. Make them believe too!”

“Henry, it’s not that easy. They’re cursed, remember?”

“Make them believe, Emma!” Henry implored.

“I don’t know how. Do you have any idea how crazy this all sounds? It took you nearly dying for me to believe, and I’m not even a fairy tale character. I’m not even in the book.”

“You _have_ to save them, Emma. You’re the saviour!”

Emma looked up at Regina for help, but found nothing but an impassive face staring out of the hospital window. _Gee, thanks for the back up here, Your Evil Queeny-ness_ , she thought to herself sarcastically. _Perhaps you could explain to your son how to break this curse, as I have absolutely no idea._

“I’m as lost for answers as you are, Miss Swan,” Regina answered, not realising Emma hadn’t spoken aloud. Turning to face the woman who looked somewhat alarmed, she finished, “Never once have I been referred to as _Your_ _Evil Queeny-ness_ , and if you value any portion of your miserable life, then refrain from doing so again. Do you understand?”

“W-What?” Emma spluttered.

“I wasn’t mumbling, dear,” Regina growled as she pierced Emma with angry brown eyes.

“But I … I didn’t say anything.”

Regina blinked and stared at the bewilderment in Emma’s eyes. “You …? Excuse me?”

“You can read minds?” Henry said, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“No, I cannot,” Regina said swiftly.

“But … you read mine!” Emma blurted.

“Yes … well, be that as it may, you are apparently the exception to the mind-reading rule.” Regina shifted uncomfortably on her feet. This side-effect of theirs was unwelcome and downright terrifying in this real world. She noticed earlier that she was still able to hear Emma’s thoughts as if she had spoken clearly, but explaining why … well … that was going to be difficult.

“But … how?”

“Yeah, Mum, how?”

Regina cleared her throat and gave Henry a quick kiss on the brow before she stalked gracefully away from the bed. “That, dear, is a very good question, however, Miss Swan and I have a visit to make. Explanations will have to wait.”

Emma and Henry were left gawking at the glass door that swung shut behind the mayor. The woman sent an impatient glance back through the glass before turning a corner that made Emma grimace. “Umm … I better go, kid. Catch you soon, okay? Stay … conscious.”

*****

_So, you can read minds? Do you have any idea how freaking scary that is? Not to mention just plain rude._

Regina gave Emma a sidewards glance that dripped of impatience.

“Sorry,” Emma muttered. _But still … rude._

Regina rolled her eyes to the heaven’s and willed herself some measure of tolerance. Yes, Emma was apparently her True Love as evident by the pulse wave, but despite that point, she was still irritating. 

“Why did Henry wake up?”

“Like I said, the cursed didn’t take.”

“And that’s bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You forget, Madame Mayor, I can tell when you’re lying.”

“I have no other explanation, Miss Swan, so I’m going with the only solution that fits.”

“Sure. Keep lying. It really shows you’re trying.” Emma rolled her eyes.

Regina narrowed hers. This woman was hands down the most exasperating nuisance in existence. “You have no idea what I’ve been through to reach a point where I deliberately want the curse broken, so don’t you dare tell me I haven’t tried!”

Emma bit her lip and shook her head. “And there again, is a lie. Why can’t you just be straightforward for once! God, you’re so … so … ugh!” Emma stormed off towards Gold’s shop leaving Regina behind, tears springing to her eyes.

She _had_ lied, she suddenly realised. Emma _did_ know what she had been through to reach her current state of thinking. She’d been there, beside her, as her heart crumbled around them. She’d held her fragile form afterwards. She’d been there, trying to salvage the woman left behind in all that wreckage. Just because Emma had no memories of the dark place they’d visited didn’t mean she was any less important to her. Convincing the woman of what they’d shared, however, was a daunting task.

“You coming or not?” Emma yelled back at her impatiently.

 _And still, the most annoying woman ever,_ Regina thought darkly as she stepped after the pouting woman.

The tingle of the bell announced their arrival and standing behind his counter, Gold smiled ruefully as he wiped at the non-existent dust on the glass top. “Miss Swan. Madame Mayor. What a curious sight, you both entering my establishment together. What, dare I ask, can I do for you both? Perhaps a pretty bauble for the one you’re courting?” Rumple asked, looking directly at Regina.

“Drop it, Rumple,” Regina snapped, the distaste at what Rumple was implying thick and oily against her tongue. Caring for Emma Swan was one thing, having people know that … well … that was another dilemma entirely. “I have no doubt that you know exactly what’s going on.”

The imp simply raised an eyebrow at the name and flicked his gaze to Emma. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that the look of a believer?”

“We need your help.”

“Oh? With what? Was that not True Love’s kiss that I felt sweep through me moments ago? Shouldn’t that have …” Rumple flourished his hand about. “Brought everything full circle?”

Emma knitted her brow. “True Love’s kiss? But, Regina said that didn’t work.” _Didn’t you?_ Emma’s voice continued in Regina’s head.

Regina ignored her. “All that magic succeeding in doing was wake Henry from his curse.”

“Tut, tut, tut. Cursing your own son now, dearie? Seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Regina’s sneer was frightening, causing Emma to back it up a step. The former Queen thrust out her hand trying to bring forth the magic that would strangle the Dark One’s throat. With disgust, she dragged her hand back down again a second later. Magic simply was not in this world.

Rumple smirked at the action and carried on. “So … True Love didn’t break the curse over the town. Interesting. I wonder what it may have done instead?” He brought his hands together, fingertips tapping against one another and stared at Regina. “Filled any voids lately?”

Regina’s jaw dropped open. “What?” Regina’s hand went over her heart as Rumple grinned before turning to Emma.

“Miss Swan, True Love is the most powerful magic of all. Capable of transcending realms and breaking any curse.” Rumple glanced over at Regina. “Luckily for you, I happened to have bottled some.”

“You did?” Regina said, her hand falling away from her chest.

“From strands of your parent’s hair,” he told Emma. “I created the most powerful potion in all the realm. So powerful, in fact, that when I created the dark curse, I placed a single drop on the parchment. Just a little safety valve.”

Regina’s eyes found Emma’s to find a mix of anxiety and hope in them. Her path was so intricately woven to those of the town, that she never had a choice but to save everyone.

 _That’s why I’m the Saviour?_ Emma thought. _Because of Rumplestiltskin._

Regina inclined her head slightly, acknowledging Emma’s thoughts. _And quite possibly the reason you were able to save me too,_ Regina thought to herself. Casting the dark curse with the essence of true love weaved into the magic, it appears, had given her heart a safety valve also. 

“I want to break the curse,” Emma said. “Tell me how.”

“Well, today is your lucky day. I didn’t use all the potion. I saved some for a rainy day.”

“Well, it’s storming like a bitch. Where is it?”

Rumple grinned. “Oh, where it is, is not the problem. Who it’s with, is.”

“Enough riddles. Tell us where the potion is.”

Rumple’s smile was cruel. His eyes twinkled as he asked, “Tell me, Your Majesty, is our friend still in the basement?”

Regina sneered. “Why you twisted little imp. You left the potion with _her_!”

“Not with her so much, as _in_ her.”

Regina’s gasp was muffled by Emma’s thoughts of _God, I’m so freaking confused right now._ Regina looked at Emma and was about to explain the dragon situation, when Rumple revealed the sword. David’s sword.

“What the hell are we supposed to do with that?” Emma asked.

“Not _we_ , Emma … _you._ ”

“No. I’ll be the one that deals with this,” Regina said firmly. Emma may very well be her True Love, so on that reasoning, it was probably best not to go sending her in after a bitter, angry, fire-breathing dragon who has been trapped in a cave for thirty years and who happens to have swallowed True Love’s potion.

“With due respect, Your Majesty, but Emma is the Saviour. _She_ is the one that must do this.”

“Over my dead body,” Regina growled.

Rumple smiled. “If you wish.”

“Enough,” Emma said, slamming shut the lid of the sword case. “Regina. Let’s do this.”


	10. here be dragons

“What is this place?” Emma asked as Regina led her into a building whose windows were covered in faded newspapers.

“Would you like a tour, or shall we just get to it?”

“Lead the way,” Emma said with a wave of her hand. _Sarcastic bit—_

“Hey!” Regina said, turning on her. “Watch your lang—thoughts!”

Emma rolled her eyes. _Fu—_

“Emma!”

“Sorry,” Emma said with a curl of her lip and an insolent bounce of her head.

Regina scowled and walked over to the tree-shaped mirror on the wall with lovely dreams of ringing Emma’s petulant neck. Placing a hand over the mirror, she let the appropriate words come to mind and a second later, the wall lifted.

“Woah.”

The wall parted again and revealed a lift. Regina looked at Emma with a slight smirk. “Get in.”

“After you.”

“It’s a two-man job. The elevator is hand-operated. I have to stay up here and lower you down.”

“And I’m just supposed to trust you?”

Regina felt those words like a knife to the heart. _You do trust me, you just don’t remember._ Emma strode past her, sword arrogantly swinging at her hip. “I don’t think you have much choice in the matter, Miss Swan.”

“This battle I’m supposed to fight … _who_ is it? _What_ is down there?”

A shiver attacked Regina’s chest. _Maleficent. The dragon. God, Emma surely couldn’t survive this._ “Just an old friend.”

“Then why don’t you go talk to them?”

Regina searched Emma’s eyes staring back at her with a mix of fear and defiance. “You’re right. I should.”

Emma held out the sword.

Pushing the hilt away, Regina sighed heavily. “I can’t. Her punishment here was different from everyone else’s. I trapped her … in a different form. She doesn’t want to hear from me. You have to trust me on that.”

Emma’s head shifted back on her neck as she stared back at her with that lingering doubt ribboned with her want to believe. Her eyes were wide, open, and conflicted. The battle in her eyes was short-lived and Regina nearly sobbed when Emma said, “Okay. I’ll go down there.”

She lifted a hand, wanting to stop this insanity and pull Emma back from danger. Maleficent wasn’t going to be easy. Regina’s hand dropped to her side when Emma turned to her, those green eyes suddenly fierce and angry.

“Let’s get one this clear, Your Majesty, I’m only doing this because it’s what Henry wants. To break this curse. If something happens to him, if he dies because of this, then so do _you_.”

Regina nearly laughed at the absurdity of that statement. Of course she would die for Henry. Emma knows that. No, Emma _knew_ that. Swallowing the unfairness of her life yet again, she said, “Well then, let’s get on with it then.” Inhaling through her nose, her eyes were drawn to the swan necklace around Emma’s neck as it guarded the valley of her chest. _She never did tell me why she wore that_ , she thought randomly. Remembering the way it had brushed her skin as they made love, Regina closed her eyes to shut out the temptation of what she could no longer have. Opening her eyes, she looked back up at Emma, trembling at the intense burn of those green eyes. “Now … this is what you’re going to have to do …”

*****

Regina paced. Emma’s feelings and thoughts were racing around her mind in a chaotic mess of fear and adrenaline. She heard the moment Emma’s thoughts drove her to put away the sword and reach for her gun. “Stupid!” Regina said to herself. Calling futilely down the elevator shaft, she yelled, “Use the sword you imbecilic hero!”

 _Regina?_ Emma’s thoughts came back to her.

A moment later, the sounds of gun fire echoed up the shaft.

“Absolute idiot. Conceived by idiots. _Born_ an idiot,” Regina muttered to herself as she frantically wrung out her hands. 

_Hot. Hot. Hot!_ Emma thought.

Regina rolled her eyes to the heavens. “It’s a fire-breathing dragon, Miss Swan. What do you expect?”

_Woo Hoo!_

Regina frowned. _Now what?_

 _Oh crap. Oh crap! This is it, I’m a dead woman._

“Emma!” Regina screamed.

“My, my, my, Madame Mills. Whatever seems to be the problem?” Regina swung around to find Rumple arrogantly striding across the foyer, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. “Tell me, dearie, how’s the void these days. Filled?”

“What are you talking about, imp.”

Gunfire sounded up the shaft again.

Rumple smiled. “Stubborn, I see? Did you not warn her about the weapons of this world and their utter ineffectiveness against dragons?”

_Crap. Now what. The sword!_

Regina nearly rolled her eyes at Emma’s train of thought.

“Your saviour is an imbecile,” she snapped at Rumple.

“ _My_ saviour.” Rumple shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Afraid not, dearie.”

Sick of this man’s games and riddles, Regina snatched him by the collar. “What are you talking about?”

Rumple grinned. “I’m sure you already know, Your Majesty. And to think,” he said, looking pointedly down at where she was gripping him. “I’d have thought you be significantly more grateful.”

Regina released him with a shove. “Enough. Explain.”

_Oh, my God. It worked. Crap. Hot!_

Regina’s gaze flicked to the shaft. _Emma?_

_What the … where the hell did it go?_

“What is it dearie? Hearing echoes perhaps?”

Narrowing her gaze and wishing her ire could fry the annoying man, Regina said, “You know something. Don’t you?”

“Know? Of course I know! I’m Rumplestiltskin,” he said with a roll of the tongue and a flourish of his hands.

_The egg. Henry. Regina …_

God, that desperation. That confusion in Emma’s thoughts. It burned at her chest. Why was she being tortured like this? Why, when she finally had the ending she wanted, that it was torn from her time and time again. She rubbed at her chest, trying to ease the ache Emma had stirred there. “What is happening to me,” she said, facing him and hating the desperation in her voice. “Why am I being cursed like this?”

“Happening to you? Why, dearie, what _have_ you done?” He looked at the hand over her chest and grinned salaciously. “I think, perhaps, my pupil has found her reward. You see, Your Majesty, with darkness there must be light. Without light, well … you become a significant threat to the Dark One, and I’m not quite ready to relinquish my reign just yet.”

“I don’t want your power,” Regina said with a snarl.

“Perhaps not, but you’d be more aware than anyone the addiction of power … of _magic._ ”

Regina’s blood pulsed with a curious dread. “There’s no magic here.”

Rumple giggled and Regina’s blood froze. Rumple’s grin unnerved her. “Not yet, dearie. Not yet.” His gaze was drawn to the elevator as Emma’s voice was heard calling up for assistance. “Let’s not keep _your_ saviour waiting, Madame Mayor.”

Hands clenching and heart nearly failing with worry, Regina slumped into the chair Rumple tied her to the instant a surge of relief came from the woman in the cavern many feet below her.

_Take that dragon bitch!_

*****

The elevator shaft whirred as the carriage rushed skyward. With a clunk, the whirring stopped. A second later, Emma shouted up the shaft.

“Regina. What the hell was that? Regina!”

Regina herself fought against the bonds keeping her hostage. 

“Miss Swan,” Rumple said behind her. “You’ve got it?”

“Mr Gold, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to check on you. I’m glad I did, Regina’s abandoned you and sabotaged the elevator.”

 _Lying arsehole!_ Regina thought, struggling and getting nowhere. _Emma. Please. Don’t give it to him._

“What? I’m coming up,” Emma said.

“Now … there’s no time for this. You can’t possibly scale the wall and carry that.”

“Yeah? Well I can try.”

 _That’s my stubborn saviour,_ Regina thought fondly. _My_ saviour? Regina’s eyes flicked about the foyer as realisation filtered in on her. _My_ saviour. Not Gold’s not everyone else’s, _mine_. By saving me, she’s going to break the curse because _I_ want to. That sneaky little snake. He used me. The curse was his. He promised me my happy ending, and I got nothing but three decades of insanity and heartache, only to gift me this saviour, her True Love, but only for a moment. Regina had little doubt that once Storybrooke woke, Emma would flee from her. Angered and ready to wring his neck for answers, she tore at the bonds tying her to the chair and gritted her teeth against the pain in her wrists.

“No you can’t. Just toss it up. Your boy’s going to be fine. I promise. We’re running out of time. Toss it up,” Gold said.

_No, Emma. Don’t trust the two-faced imp!_

After a pause, Regina heard Emma say, “You hold onto it, I’ll be right up.” A moment later, Emma called out. “Mr Gold. Gold!”

The man in question gave Regina a smug smile on his way out of the library. “Goodbye, Madame Mayor.”

“Emma!” she tried to call out, hearing nothing but mumbled nonsense. “Emma!” The woman’s jacket-clothed hand reached over the threshold of the shaft. “Mmm. Mmm.”

“Regina!”

“He tricked you,” Regina informed the woman as the sting of the ripping tape left her skin.

The moment Emma touched her to rip the tape from her mouth, the ground dropped from beneath them.

 


	11. untie me

The bouncy castle caught their fall, much to Regina’s distaste. Scrambling off the infantile structure the moment she had control over her limbs, she turned on Emma. “How could you! How could you give him that!”

Emma blinked at her and the scene around them. “We’re back,” she whispered as she crawled to the edge and slid off the castle. 

“Focus, Miss Swan. You just gave the potion we needed to break the curse on Storybrooke to that slippery eel. Explain yourself!”

“I …” Emma stared at the amusement park for a moment longer before focusing on Regina. “He said you abandoned me.”

“You said you’d trust me!”

“I … how can I? You’re the Evil Queen, if you hadn’t noticed. Who trusts the Evil Queen?”

“You do … did,” Regina said back with fading growl. The clueless saviour was driving her to the brink of sanity. Why didn’t this place revive her memories? Why couldn’t Emma see what they had shared? The darkness, the light, the memories. Regina smirked suddenly at Emma and watched the woman back up a step.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Refusing to answer, Regina grabbed Emma’s hand and shoved it into her chest cavity.

Crying out with a mix of revolt and shock, Emma tried to back away. “What the hell are you doing!”

“Take my heart in your hand.” Regina winced at Emma’s efforts to pull her hand from her chest.

“What? Why? No!” Emma’s eyes were absurdly wide.

“Take it. Please. Gently!” she snapped and hissed as Emma’s erratic snatch squeezed the organ.

“God … this is just so wrong.” Emma cringed and a second later, her back arched and her eyes glazed over with a flash of light.

They crumpled to the dirt as everything Regina had been through forced its way through Emma’s mind. Her life. Her curse. The memories hidden in her heart and the love they had shared together. Collapsing against one another as the memories ceased, Regina saw a flash of recognition in Emma’s eyes before the ground disappeared beneath them.

###

“Where is he?” Emma asked as she attended to the ropes at Regina’s back.

###

“Why! Why must there be a bouncing castle! Why!” Regina said, utterly furious that every time they visited Emma’s heart she was tossed about like a rag doll. Smoothing at her clothes, she faced Emma with crossed arms and a dark look.

Emma smiled.

The familiar twinkle in those eyes made Regina’s mouth go dry and her hands flop back to her sides.

“Better than landing in a heap on a cold, dark floor, don’t you think?”

“You remember?”

Emma cocked her head and frowned in thought. “I guess?” She didn’t sound convinced. “I saw your life, and what you and I … umm …” she trailed off with a blush fanning across her cheeks.

Regina smirked at the way the saviour fidgeted and scuffed at the dirt. “You saw what, dear?”

“The, umm … kissing and such.”

“And such?” Regina raised a brow, pleased at the way it ruffled the swan’s feathers.

“God, Regina, you know what I mean.”

“Perhaps, though following your usual pattern of stuttered half-sentences, I could, however, have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at her. “We made love.”

A flush of desire smacked Regina fair between the legs. She swallowed heavily. Perhaps making the woman say it wasn’t the greatest idea after all. Clearing her throat, she said, “Yes … we did.”

“You love me?” Emma continued with a thoughtful frown as she mulled over the memories and feelings Regina had shown her. The force and amplitude of Regina’s feelings for her resulted in two opposite reactions. One, she felt a serenity and strength she’d never experienced before, and two, it terrified her. Surely she wasn’t worthy enough for that amount of love, understanding and desire. Emma shivered a little at the last thought. “Wait …” she muttered after a heartbeat or two. “I love _you_?” The question was loaded with doubt and confusion.

“I’m uncertain.” Regina hugged herself and rolled her shoulders. It was apparent that while the Saviour understood what had transpired between them, her emotional attachment to the events had yet to catch up.

“We broke Henry’s curse!” Emma’s jaw dropped as she stared at Regina. “ _You’re_ my True Love?”

“It certainly appears that way.”

“Hot damn,” Emma whispered, her eyes drawn to searching the dirt for answers. Emma scratched at her neck as none were forthcoming. “We don’t remember anything when we go back, do we?”

Regina sighed. “No. At least … _you_ don’t. I, however, have the ability to do so since that kiss in the hospital. Though …” Regina looked around as she trailed off. “I didn’t recall this place until we returned to it. Since our kiss, I retained the experiences within my heart, however you remain clueless. Something that shouldn’t really surprise me.” 

“Hey!”

Regina shrugged. 

“You know, for someone that’s supposed to love me, you’re dishing out a healthy helping of snark.”

“Just because we share certain feelings, doesn’t mean I have to _like_ you, Miss Swan.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re immature, endlessly irritating and—”

“No. _Why_ do you remember and I don’t?”

Regina frowned. Why indeed. Pacing around, she contemplated the situation. Emma’s kiss broke Henry’s curse, an inexplicable occurrence in itself. That poisoned curse should have required the kiss of Henry’s true love, and not be broken as a side-effect from something shared between another true love pairing. Rumple’s words came back to haunt her and she gasped in realisation. Turning wide eyes on Emma, the woman flinched away from her. “You broke _my_ curse.”

“Ah, no, or haven’t you noticed, Storybrooke is as clueless as you are.”

 “That’s not what I mean.” Regina strode over to Emma and took the nervous woman’s hands. “You filled my void.”

“Umm …” Emma blushed and Regina huffed with understanding at where Emma’s mind just went.

“Not _that_ void.” Scrubbing at her forehead, she shook her head at Emma’s devious thoughts.

Emma was grinning when she looked back up. “Oh, but I did though, didn’t I?”

“The void in my _heart_ ,” Regina said pointedly. “Enacting Rumple’s curse put a darkness in my heart that was never supposed to heal. But you did. You saved me. You broke my curse. My heartache, and in turn, you saved the person I love most.”

“Henry.”

Regina nodded slowly. “The kiss saved my heart. Without Henry, there would be an ache that I could never recover from.” Her hand, placed gently over her chest pressed at the rhythmic thump below. “And I have a nasty suspicion this was Rumple’s plan all along.”

Emma gave her a sad smile and the ground rushed away.

###

“He’s gone.” Regina snarled. “Gold! He manipulated all of this.”

Emma undid the ropes at her ankles. 

###

“You know, you can’t kill me with a glare,” Emma said to Regina as the bouncy castle tossed them around once again.

“One could certainly try,” Regina said, narrowing her eyes impossibly more.

Emma shook her head, but made for a safe distance away from Regina. Wandering around, she studied the fair they were once again thrown into the middle of. Stopping beside a side show where clowns with gaping mouths swung back and forth, she shivered and stepped back quickly.

“Problem, dear?” Regina said behind her.

“Ah … nope. Those things are just creepy, you know.”

Regina eyed the clowns. “It’s a plastic novelty game.”

“With creepy clowns.”

Regina shrugged and picked up a ball, placing one in the mouth of the nearest clown. The ball rattled and rolled into the alley marked with a six and smoke erupted from the mouth of the clown. Wide-eyed, she stepped back as a maniacal laugh erupted in surround sound from the booth. She winced the instant Emma dug her fingers into her arm.

“Make it stop,” the saviour said tremulously.

“How do you propose I do that?”

“I don’t care, just shut it up!” Emma snatched her hand from Regina’s arm and pressed her ears shut. “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.”

“Emma? What—” Regina gasped. This was a memory she had played witness to that first time they fell into Regina’s heart _. No, not a memory, a nightmare_. Flustered about how to end Emma’s torture, Regina turned a growl on the side-show and promptly fire-balled it out of existence. The laughing taunts stopped instantly with falling debris filling the silence it left. “Emma?” Cowering with her ears still covered, Emma flinched as Regina put a careful hand on her shoulder. “Emma, it’s gone. The clowns are gone.”

Peering at Regina, then to what had become of the sideshow, Emma dropped her hands. “Impressive,” she said shakily after taking in the wreckage for a moment.

“I aim to please.”

Emma shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Sorry, I, uh, don’t like clowns.”

Passing Emma an understanding smile, Regina reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I know.”

Emma simply nodded vaguely, her mind stuck in replay of a particularly tormenting stint with a foster family that had a perversion for collecting ceramic clowns. Shivering again as a gust of wind blew through the carnival. Turning to its source, they saw the thunderous clouds once sitting above the horizon closing in and casting ominous shadows over the fields of flowers and grass.

“I don’t like this place,” Emma said, her voice sounding small and distant.

Regina frowned at the approaching storm, almost willing it to evaporate in a cloud of steam. A bolt of lightning pierced the dark grey and Emma stepped subtly closer. Clowns and electrical storms, two of Emma’s least favourite things. Sighing and wondering what she could do to ease the discomfort of the subdued woman beside her, a thought dawned on her like a hammer to the skull. _Of course!_ Emma’s emotions controlled this place, just as hers had controlled the darkness.

“Give me your hand,” Regina said, holding hers out.

“What?”

Regina thrust her hand closer, the glowing cuffs barely visible in the light of Emma’s heart. Emma frowned at her offering for a heartbeat, then Regina’s memories seemed to enlighten her. In haste, she snatched at the hand, shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

That warmth. That peace. Emma was unprepared for how it would feel and she nearly buckled against Regina. She’d seen Regina’s memories, experienced her side of the burgeoning relationship between them, but without her own feelings and memories, it all seemed surreal. Now, however, now she began to understand, and, God, it was glorious. Something seemed to swirl and combine at their touch and through that weird looking bracelet. _Magic_ , Emma’s memories from Regina supplied. Emma tensed. _Holy crap! I have magic!_

“It’s okay, Emma.”

Emma rushed out a breath, delighting in the continual use of her first name in the timbre of that alluring voice.

“The storm is fading.”

Letting an eyelid flutter open, she witness the darkness in the sky retreat back to the horizon and breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Emma?”

“Yeah?”

“May I have my hand back? I fear I’m losing sensation in my fingers.”

Emma looked to their conjoined hands and quickly released her grip. Like a vice, she had practically squeezed Regina’s fingers to pulp. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right, dear.”

Emma scuffed her toe in the dirt and thrust her hands into her back pockets. “So, umm … magic, huh?”

Regina was able to do nothing but nod before the ground rushed away once again.

###

“Then let’s get the snake and make him pay.”

Regina nodded and they rushed to the door. After taking a step or two, the horizon darkened in a deep purple hue.

“What is that?” Emma asked.

Gaping, Regina began to smile as understanding caught up. “Magic.”

 


	12. magic and the wraith

Storybrooke panicked. The strange storm that swept through the town had unnerved everyone. Mary Margaret had been wringing out her hands and pacing for hours and was, quite frankly, giving Emma a headache. 

“Will you stop!” she snapped eventually, regretting her words at the wide-eyed hurt of her roommate-come-mother. _God. My mother,_ Emma groaned internally for the hundredth time. The awareness of the curse and magic was still hard to swallow. The fact she had to defeat a dragon in a creepy cavern under the city for True Love’s potion should have been evidence enough. 

“Magic,” Regina had gasped as the air cleared.

“You’re sure?” Emma asked.

“I’m certain.” Regina had walked off after that, intent on ringing Gold’s neck and making sure Henry was all right. Emma made to follow but was practically ordered to go check on Snow White. A task that had slowly driven her insane.

Emma’s eyes slid to the black case holding her dragon-slaying sword. A sword that once belonged to her father, Prince Charming, aka David Nolan, aka Mary Margaret’s crush … Emma held her head and groaned again.

“Are you okay?” Mary Margaret asked, unable to help herself.

“I’m fine, just … stop moving for a moment.”

Mary Margaret nodded and sat at the dining table with Emma. “You know,” Mary Margaret said a few minutes later, unable to maintain silence. “Ruby said that storm cloud smelled strange. Did you notice that?”

Emma shook her head.

Mary Margaret narrowed her eyes in thought. “You know, I’ve seen something like that before, I’m sure of it. Have you—”

Emma’s phone rang and she snatched it to her ear hurriedly. “Sherriff Swan. What?” Emma sighed and slumped. “Be right there.”

Mary Margaret’s curious face looked up at her as she stood. “What is it?”

“Mr Gold has arrested Regina.”

“What? But … _you’re_ the Sherriff.”

“A civilian arrest apparently,” Emma said shrugging on her brown jacket. “I better go sort it out.”

“What about the storm cloud?”

Emma shrugged. “It’s weather. I can’t arrest weather for being weird.”

“No, but …” Mary Margaret slumped into her chair. “No, I suppose not.”

Opening the door, David Nolan, her father, jerked backwards, his hand positioned to knock. “Emma!”

“David?”

“I, uh … wanted to make sure you were both okay. The storm …” he said, trailing off.

“Mary Margaret is inside.”

“Oh, thanks.”

As she drove across town, the street lights and anything electrical began to flicker and spark and leap about as if possessed. “What the hell?” Frowning, she planted her foot and soon screeched to a halt at the station. There was no sign of Gold, however, there was a very dazed-looking Regina in a cell. “Regina!”

“Emma? Stay back. Don’t come any closer.”

Emma’s feet stuck to the ground. “What?” Emma flinched as the light above her sparked. The last thing she needed was for her hair to go up in flames. “Regina, what’s going on!”

“Gold. He …” Regina stared at her hand.

“He what?” Emma asked stepping closer.

“Emma!” A voice called from behind her. Whirling around, Mary Margaret and David came running into the Sherriff’s station.

“Mary Margaret? What are you doing here?”

“The lights,” she said, pointing up to them.

Emma sighed. This woman was terribly timid. A scream pierced the air and Emma twisted to see what it was Mary Margaret had seen to make such a horrendous noise. Emma gasped and fell back. What the hell was a dementor doing in Storybrooke? The cloaked figure with orange eyes swooped to the jail cell and tore off the door with a blast of air and threw it across the room like a match stick. _Holy shit!_

Eyes fell to Regina as she stood and faced the demon.

“Regina!” Emma screamed when the woman’s head tipped back sharply after the creature held out its hand. 

“Hey!” David yelled and threw a chair at it. The chair ricocheted off and hit the filing cabinets before throwing David and a table across the room.

“Jesus,” Emma muttered under her breath.

The creature focused on Regina again, and before Emma could do anything to help, a fireball came out of nowhere. Mary Margaret with a lighter and a can of spray vanquished the beast. Emma stared at her for a few heartbeats utterly stunned. Maybe her mother was more bad-arse than she realised. 

Hearing a guttural gasp for air, Emma snapped her eyes to Regina and ran to her. “What the hell was that thing?” she asked, taking the woman’s hand in her own.

###

“A wraith,” Regina said after climbing from the bouncy castle, her body still trembling from the encounter.

“Which is what exactly?”

“A soul sucker.”

“That’s some freaky Harry Potter shit right there,” Emma said, shaking her head.

Regina arched an eyebrow.

“What? It is! Can we … you know, magic it away?”

Inhaling deeply through her nose and wrapping her arms around herself, she shook her head. “I’m afraid not, Miss Swan. The wraith wants the soul of those who are marked.” Regina looked down to her left palm, slightly irritated her hand wouldn’t cease shaking.

Emma stepped closer to her and took the marked hand in hers. “Who did this?” she asked after staring at the brand burned upon Regina’s skin and touching it lightly with a finger.

Allowing the touch and feeling a sense of peace in it, Regina replied quietly, “Gold.”

Emma inhaled deeply and rushed the air back out. “Why?”

“Presumably to get me out of the way.” At Emma’s curious frown, she pulled her hand back and said, “That cloud that Storybrooke assumes was a storm was magic.” Emma nodded. “Which means, as a fellow magic user, Gold obviously wants me out of the equation.” Regina stared at the mark on her hand again. Gold had set her up to be the worst kind of monster, only to offer her redemption in the form of the Saviour. Redemption that came with a catch … her death. “There’s no escaping a wraith, Emma. It’s only a matter of time.”

“No. I refuse to believe that.”

“Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter what you believe. When Storybrooke regains its memories, they will celebrate my death with much glee. They will want revenge, Miss Swan, and this …” she jerked her hand. “Will satisfy them.”

Emma shook her head. “You’re not dying. There’s got to be another way.”

“There is none.”

Emma scowled and began to pace back and forth. “There has to be. I’m not giving up this easily.”

“Emma, you don’t have a choice. The moment we get back from this … _place_ , the wraith will come again. I will never be free of it.”

Emma stopped pacing and thrust her hands to her hips. “What if you run?”

Regina’s eyebrows shot up. “Leave Storybrooke?”

“Yeah.”

Sadly, Regina shook her head. “That’s not an option.”

“Why not? There’s no magic outside Storybrooke … is there?”

“No, however—”

“Then pack your fancy car and leave.”

“I’m not—”

“It’s not negotiable.”

“Emma!” Regina clutched at the agitated woman’s arm. “I’m not leaving. I can’t.”

Emma’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why not?”

“Henry.” Regina bowed her head. “You.”

“What about me?”

Regina’s eyes slid to the ground and she sighed. “I can’t leave Henry. He’s my son and I’m not going to abandon him.” Emma winced and Regina took both of her hands in hers. “You never abandoned him, Emma. You gave him his best chance.” Emma swallowed and refused to meet Regina’s gaze. Sighing, Regina said, “I’m not leaving either one of you. Therefore, I insist you drop this grand escape plan of yours.”

“But—”

“No, Emma. It’s not an option.”

Huffing out a breath, Emma walked to a nearby bench and dropped herself on it. She had an inkling that Regina didn’t want to leave the love and the happy ending she had found in Henry and, still finding it hard to believe, the true love she shared with her. How can the woman willingly sacrifice her life to the dementor? Surely that was equivalent to fleeing Storybrooke, only with a more permanent result. Emma pursed her lips and shook her head. The woman was insane if she thought that dying was better than running. Henry would certainly agree. 

Looking up at Regina who was studying the clouds behind her, Emma was struck with the beauty of the woman. Through Regina’s heart memories, she knew the care and desire Regina held for her, but wished fervently that she had the same depth of emotion in return. Yes, she was attracted to Regina. She wished she remembered those kisses and that night they slept together from her own perspective. Maybe, just maybe, if she still retained her memories of their time in Regina’s heart, then she’d have a greater insight to the complicated woman now glaring at the storm in the distance.

“Emma?” Regina said, looking at the clouds brewing rapidly overhead and then to Emma herself. “What are you thinking?”

“I want to understand you. I don’t—” Emma stopped the moment Regina gasped. The woman’s eyes glazed over and her back arched. Rushing to her side, Emma placed a hand on her arm. “Regina?” The woman’s eyes had rolled into the back of her head and lightning crackled down around them. “Regina!” Emma screamed pulling the woman tight against her as the air charged and thundered around them. The moment Regina was against her, Emma’s heart slowed and a bubble of glowing energy encased them. Shutting her eyes against a barrage of static that seemed to be flowing into her head, Emma clutched at Regina and waited for the phenomenon to pass.

Warmth. Safety. They were two of the things Regina felt as Emma wrapped her in a tight embrace. Violence shattered the world outside their bubble, but inside, Regina sighed and relaxed. Head lolling about on her shoulders, a curious light entered her defenceless mind and seemed to look around curiously. Regina chuckled. The sensation tickled.

“Regina?” she heard Emma’s voice say in a strange sort of detached echo. “Regina.” The voice was insistent. “Regina! Open your eyes. Look at me.”

Regina frowned. What did she mean, open her eyes? They _were_ open. Weren’t they?

“Regina.” 

She felt herself being shaken.

“Wake up.” A growl emanated from beside her ear as she obviously failed to comply. “Stop this!” Emma snapped.

Gravity appeared and Regina felt herself tumbling. Expecting the sharp reintroduction of the ground to the back of her head, instead, she felt strong arms wrap her and softly lower her to the ground.

“Regina, please, open your eyes.”

“Emma?” she asked through a thick, dry throat.

Emma’s head connected with her shoulder with a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank God.” Emma remained against her for a few more heartbeats before lifting her head. “What just happened?”

Regina frowned up at Emma, the brilliant blue of the sky behind her making her squint. “Where is the storm?”

Emma looked up and shrugged.

Regina stared at the saviour for a few long moments and frowned. _You wanted to understand me,_ she thought, recalling Emma’s last words.

“Yeah, I did,” Emma said, looking back down to her.

Regina gasped and blinked.

“What?”

Shaking her head, she said, “Never mind. Help me up please.” Dusting the dirt from herself as best she could, she tried not to think. A sentiment that soon proved futile when a thought crossed her mind. _Trust the saviour to make the invasion of thoughts and feelings feel like an ecstasy trip_ , she thought, recalling the light and peace of the experience.

“Sorry, what?” Emma said, wide-eyed and thoroughly stunned as she stared at Regina. “I did what now?”

Regina sighed. “Do you recall from my memories the time in which you were tortured in my heart, all for the further insight and understanding I wished into your psyche?”

Emma blinked and unfolded the question. Nodding slowly, she said, “Yes?”

“Well, it appears that whatever that was,” she said waving her arm about. “Was _your_ equivalent.”

“Wait. What? I can understand you now?”

“Of sorts.”

Emma frowned in question.

“It’s more of a conduit to active thoughts and emotions.”

“Of course it is,” Emma said with a scoff, a shrewd expression then crossing her face. “So … Miss Mills, tell me, why are you so willing to give away your life?”

Regina shook her head. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Demand an explanation why you’d sooner throw yourself at the dementor than escaping, therefore giving me time to find another way to vanquish it?”

“I’ve made my peace with my past, Miss Sw—”

“My name is Emma.”

Regina narrowed her eyes. 

“And I’m going to be damned if I let my true love squander her chance at her happy ending after all that’s happened. You think that letting the wraith take your life is going to absolve you of your past? Give you redemption?” Emma put a hand to her chest as Regina’s acknowledgement of those thoughts raced through her. She stepped forward and took Regina’s hands in her own. “No. Don’t even think it. You can’t die. I’m not going to let you.”

“It’s not a choice we have.”

Emma squeezed Regina’s hands. “Yes, damn it. It is.” Dropped her grip on Regina, Emma stalked back and forth. “Look, I know I don’t remember what I feel.” Emma rubbed at her chest. “But I can see what you feel and …” Emma stopped and looked to Regina. “It’s worth fighting for. After all this time, after everything that’s come before now, you deserve this. You deserve Henry. You deserve … me.” Emma frowned and questioned that last statement. Blinking rapidly, she shook her head. “I’m … I know I’m not worth much, but—”

“Emma,” Regina said, in a low warning tone.

“—I’m willing to try.” She looked up at Regina and smiled softly. “You’ve fought long enough for your chance to be happy, and if I’m it, then I’m in. Okay?”

Regina nodded slightly. 

“But that means you need to fight. Do you understand me? You need to beat the dementor.”

“Wraith, dear.”

“Whatever. We get back and we defeat it, okay?”

Regina took a deep breath and sighed. “When we get back, we won’t remember this. I will resume my desire to sacrifice myself to the wraith, and you will be clueless to the fondness we share.”

Emma strode at her, making Regina step back a little. “Then we end the blackout. We kiss again.”

Shaking her head, Regina said, “Emma, I’m not certain it will work again.”

“I thought True Love broke any curse.”

Regina smiled sadly and slowly lifted her hand. Placing it over Emma’s heart, she said, “You’re not cursed, dear.” Emma’s eyes followed the touch. “Regardless of our … _my_ … feelings, there is no curse to break. You’ve already saved me and, Emma, you were never cursed. Kissing would simply be just that … kissing.”

Emma’s eyes looked up at her looking desperately saddened. “I refuse to believe this is the end.”

Regina’s hand slipped up and cupped Emma’s cheek. “I’m sorry, my love.”

Her gaze flicking between Regina’s eyes and lips, Emma got the sudden impulse to taste them for herself. Third-party memories weren’t enough, and with a soft groan on contact, she stole the breath from Regina’s mouth.

Emma nearly fainted at the rush of sensations that contact created. Lips parting willingly below her mouth, Regina whimpered and let Emma take everything she needed from her. Bodily jerking as a warm, pink tongue slid along the length of her own, Emma pulled Regina tightly against her, wanting no space between them.

Regina was pliant, soft, and her passion ensnared Emma completely. The moment Regina’s slender hand pushed up along the skin of her back, Emma was a goner. Coupled with Regina’s emotions rolling through her head, she was surprised she was still able to stand. Her mind remembered the bed from Regina’s heart.

Regina pulled back and smirked.

Heavily-hooded green eyes peered back at her in confusion. A bed appeared out of nowhere behind them and allowing Regina to lay her down, Emma blinked up at her.

“I can _feel_ your thoughts,” Regina said, low and husky into her ear.

A breath shuddered from Emma’s lungs as the woman pressed down on her with that smirk still painted on her face. Regina slipped a hand to Emma’s abdomen and smiled as the muscles twitched. 

_Oh, God_ , Emma thought, feeling the chain reaction from Regina’s touch explode between her legs.

Regina’s smile was smug, and wiping it off her face with a devastating kiss, Emma successfully turned the tables. Flipping Regina to her back, she pressed her length along the supple body below her and rolled her hips.

Regina’s head tipped back and she gasped. Now Emma smiled smugly down at the woman as the emotions blooming in Regina’s body from her actions came to her.

Slowly, and headily, Emma and Regina made love. The dual-sensations bouncing back and forth between them disabling all thought from their mind but the overwhelming instinct to touch, caress and bring pleasure to the other. It was an experience like no other, and lost in each other, they missed the way the dark horizon lightened. The way the warmth of the sun dispersed the darkness with the orange and golden hues of a new sunrise. Their new beginning blossoming with promise.

###

Emma stared longingly at Regina as they returned to Storybrooke. Their touch lingering for a moment and protecting their connection, Emma felt her heart burst with the love she felt for the woman. 

The touch ended and with a blink, it was gone. Their memories of the hours of love they have made, shared and nurtured evaporating from their minds.


	13. the hat, the witch, and the wardrobe

“A Wraith,” Regina said, answering the last question Emma had asked of her in Storybrooke.

“Oh, my goodness! What was that! Emma! David!” Mary Margaret had dropped the lighter and the fly spray and proceeded to hyperventilate. “Oh, my …”

David rushed to her side and Emma and Regina gave each other a look. Regina gestured to Emma to tell them with an expression that made Emma grimace.

“Do I have to?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Umm …” Emma said, turning away from Regina and looking at her parents who stared back at them desperate for answers. “Let’s … umm … right. See, the thing is …”

Huffing and rolling her eyes dramatically, Regina stepped forward. “That was a wraith, a beast that feeds on souls. Rumplestiltskin marked me and the creature will not rest in its quest to take my soul.”

David blinked and Mary Margaret’s face looked blank. “Sorry? Rumplestiltskin?”

“Yeah … see … you’re kinda like fairy tale characters,” Emma said with a crooked smile and a shrug.

David and Mary Margaret stared at Emma for a moment before bursting into nervous laughter.

“Okay, sure,” David said. 

“Emma is correct. I cursed you all to this land in an act of revenge. A rather ingenious plan until your daughter here ruined everything with her presence. She was rather ineptly fated to be the saviour, and through her bumbling actions, we have decided to end this curse lest she destroy the existence of us all.”

Mary Margaret gasped as Emma rolled her eyes. _Drama queen_ , Emma thought.

Regina glared at her.

“Daughter?” Chuckling timidly, Mary Margaret shook her head. “She’s the same age as me.”

“Yes, well, you’ve been cursed for twenty-eight years, she caught up.” Regina looked at Emma as she got stuck in a pattern of disbelieving thought that these people where her parents. 

Cocking her head, Emma thought, _I think I have her chin._

Regina nodded. “Yes, you do.”

“Huh?” David asked.

“Immaterial,” Regina said, waving him off. “Now, I suggest you all travel for the safety of your own homes.”

“What? No. I’m not letting the dementor come back and get you,” Emma said.

“You have very little choice. It will not rest until it gets its sacrifice.”

“You’re not dying! There’s got to be something we can do to vanquish it.” Emma paced for a moment. “Do you have a wand?”

“What!” Regina snapped.

“A wand. Like Harry Potter. _Expecto patronum_!” she called out, waving her hand about.

Stepping away from the offending limb before it clipped her on the nose, Regina said, “Magic here doesn’t work like that. _No_ magic I’ve ever seen works like that. Unless you’re a pathetic fairy. Harry Potter is nothing but a piece of rather shallow fiction that has little to no clue about how real magic works. One doesn’t just wave a wand about waiting for sparks to shoot out the end. We have far better uses for dragon heart string and unicorn hair than wrapping it inside a useless piece of wood.”

“Magic …” Mary Margaret muttered as Emma pouted at Regina. Regina cut a glare to the catatonic-looking woman and couldn’t suppress the smirk on her face if she tried.

Emma caught the look and rolled her eyes. “Well then, _Your Majesty_ , what do you suggest?”

“I suggest you leave me to my fate.”

“Not happening.”

“Oh for the love of the Gods,” Regina muttered on a long exhale.

“Come on, Regina. If we don’t try, Henry will never forgive us. He’ll never forgive _me_. I’m not letting you face this dementor thing alone.”

“She’s right,” Mary Margaret said quietly from behind them, forcing the bickering women to turn and stare. “Henry would be heartbroken. So if there’s something we can do, let’s do it. It’s the right thing to do.”

Regina couldn’t help the roll of her eyes.

David nodded fervently. “I agree. There’s _always_ another way and we will find it.”

Regina narrowed her eyes, not liking how close that sentence came to the whole ‘I’ll find you’ nonsense. This family and there never-ending quests for searching for things. Shaking her head, Regina huffed and found Emma’s steely glare on her.

“What?” Regina asked haughtily.

“You know something.”

“Know what?”

“There’s another option, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _Regina_.”

“Ugh. Okay. Yes, there’s a slim chance we might be able to send the wraith through a portal into another world.”

Mary Margaret and David’s eyes bulged.

“Good. How?”

“The hat.”

“Hat?” Emma frowned and then recalled her experiences with the madman and his stupid hat fetish. _Oh, shit. No. Not the mad hatter. Please. No Alice in Wonderland crap._ Regina smiled at her. Emma’s head fell forward on her neck. _Damn_.

“Come along.” Regina stalked out of the Sherriff’s station with her head held high and three reluctant followers trailing along behind her. 

*****

 _This is just stupid_.

Regina eyed Emma before trying to twist the hat in circles again. The maddening thing refused to work.

_What! It is. Dumbest thing ever._

“Oh, for goodness sake, Emma, you’re the saviour, you either believe in magic, or you don’t.”

“Of course I believe, it’s just that this magic mumbo-jumbo is just dumb.”

Regina huffed and stood tall, squaring off with the irritating blonde. “I assure you, magic is anything but _dumb_.”

“Uh … guys?” David muttered as the lights began to flick. “I think the dementor—”

“ _Wraith!_ ”

“—is coming back.”

Regina growled and stooped back to the hat, throwing it into a circle and cursing its existence when it failed to create a portal. Fire began to flicker and cast strange shadows around the room and Snow’s shrill voice began to chatter with worry.

“Regina?” Emma said at her side, reaching down and gripping the woman’s arm. A flash of magic whirled between them as Regina inadvertently harnessed the saviour’s magic. The hat began to spin in a dizzying circle, but its actions went unnoticed by the entranced pair. Between them, the connection continued to flow and unlock all that they had repressed. 

All the memories from Regina’s heart struck Emma like a hammer to the forehead. Her head kicked back and her eyes glowed at the ceiling. With a grunt, she collapsed to her knees as Regina looked on with concern etched in her eyes. 

“Emma?” she whispered.

Emma’s eyes were unfocused as all her experiences with Regina pounded into her like a ballistic missile. All the emotions, all the blackness, and all the love. Emma gasped as widened green eyes found worried brown. “Regina,” Emma whispered back. Releasing Regina’s arm, she let her jaw drop open as her memories remained. “I remember,” she whispered.

“Guys!” David screamed just as the women began to smile at each other.

Calling out her lover’s name, Emma pushed Regina across the room as the wraith swooped in at her. Caught in the vortex of the portal, the creature fell away into another realm, but not before snagging Emma’s boot.

“No! Emma!” Regina screamed, reaching for her.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret also cried out as she dove at her friend. A blink later, and Emma disappeared along with Mary Margaret, who had managed to snag Emma’s hand, unwillingly being forced into the portal with her friend.

“No!” Regina gasped after David’s valiant effort to catch the woman resulted in a belly-flop on the floor. “Emma …” Collapsing to her knees, Regina hugged her stomach and clamped a hand over her mouth. “No,” she whispered.

*****

“What the actual fu—”

“Emma!” Mary Margaret admonished.

Emma looked at her mother in a daze. Her mind was still trying to process all the memories Regina had given her of their time inside the Evil Queen’s heart. _Damn. What a rush._ They had been through a literal hell in the darkened landscape. A landscape that linked them and gave them a gift Emma couldn’t believe she had forgotten. A gift that she began to hyperventilate over. _God. True Love! I share True goddamned Love with the Evil Queen!_ Gasping for air, she recalled the way Regina tasted. The way she moved under her touch. The way she gasped her name when she came—

“Emma?” Mary Margaret asked.

“Mmm?”

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Like what?”

“Umm …”

Emma blinked and focused, and quickly dropped the satisfied smirk off her face. Fantasising about Evil Queens with nothing but heels on could wait until later, and preferably without her mother’s presence. _Ugh._ “Where the hell are we?” Emma asked, looking around at the desolate landscape. Suddenly they were ambushed by a warrior woman and her princess-looking friend. 

Mary Margaret squeaked.

“Who are you!” The warrior said, brandishing a fierce looking sword. “And why did you kill our prince!”

“What?”

“You brought the wraith here. You’ve killed him!”

Emma raised her hands to the screaming warrior lady and shook her head. “We didn’t kill anyone. Or … we didn’t mean too. Honestly, we’re innocent.”

Mulan narrowed her eyes.

“I’m Emma. This is Mary … Snow White.”

Mary Margaret’s eyebrows smashed against her hair line. “Snow White? What?”

“Ah … long story.”

“Queen Snow?” the princess-looking one said, stepping forward. She inhaled sharply. “It is really you?”

“I … uh … what?” Mary Margaret bumbled.

“I heard you were taken from this land by an evil queen.”

“Umm …” Mary looked to Emma for answers.

“Yes, she was, however, the Evil Queen is no more,” Emma said.

“You’ve slain her?” Mulan said, a blood lust sparking in her eyes.

“Ah … no. I just, umm … took away her curse.” _Among other things._ Emma grinned again and Mary Margaret gave her an odd look.

Aurora and Mulan shared a look and nodded. “That explains much,” Aurora said. “This land … it’s …” she stopped and looked around. “It’s as though we’ve been asleep for many long years. The land has been left to grow wild.”

Emma cocked her head. “You’ve been in stasis?”

“Stasis?” Mulan frowned.

“Like a sleeping curse.”

Aurora shook her head. “I don’t recall suffering the nightmares associated with a curse.”

“You have nightmares when you’re under a sleeping curse?” Emma looked at Aurora and then to Mary Margaret. Regina had cursed her to sleep for many months. _Henry!_ Emma’s hand went to her heart to ease the ache there. Did Regina know that’s what he suffered?

Mary Margaret looked lost. “Emma?”

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Emma took a deep breath. “Right. Never mind. So … how do we get home?”

“Home?” 

“Storybrooke.”

Mulan and Aurora shared a confused look.

 _Ugh!_ Thought Emma. _This was going to take a while._

*****

 _Well, this sucks_ , Emma thought as she was tugged along by roped hands tied to a horse. “And you smell,” she muttered at the big brown bum in front of her.

“What?” Mary Margaret said, offended.

“The horse. Not you.” Emma gave her mother … _ugh_ … an apologetic smile. “Where are we!” Emma yelled to the warrior whose horse was dragging them along by a rope as they attempted to remain on their feet. The woman had determined they remained a threat.

“Our home,” Aurora told her. 

“I can’t believe I’ve just met Mulan and Sleeping freaking Beauty,” Emma muttered.

“Sleeping Beauty?” Snow echoed. 

“Uh … yeah.”

“So …”Mary Margaret started. “I’m Snow White? Really? Henry was telling the truth?”

“Yes. And David Nolan is Prince Charming.”

“Huh …” Mary Margaret said, trailing off with a faint smile. “He _is_ rather charming.”

Emma groaned.

“And, umm … Regina is the Evil Queen? The one that gave me a poisoned apple because I was too pretty?” Thankfully, Mary Margaret thought that story was ridiculous and she snorted with derision.

“Umm … no, she didn’t give you a cursed apple because you were fairer. She gave it to you because you killed her True Love.”

“I what!”

“Umm … well … _one_ of her True Loves.”

“One? How many True Loves does a person get?”

“Usually one, I think.”

“How many does Regina have?”

“Two, at last count.”

“Two.” Mary Margaret nearly tripped as the landscape dropped from hard soil into beach. “Is the other suitor in Storybrooke?” she asked when she regained her footing.

“No.” _I’m stuck here in … wherever the hell this is._

“Wait. Henry told me that you were the saviour. My …” Mary Margaret gasped. “No. You’re not really my daughter, are you? You’re so … old.”

Emma wasn’t sure if she should be offended or not. Shrugging, she said, “Trust me, the age thing freaks me out too.”

“So … it’s true?”

Emma swallowed and looked to the sand below her feet. “Yeah. It’s true.”

Mary Margaret looked at her agape for a long time before staring blankly ahead. Emma understood the shock.

*****

They remained silent until they were brought into a rustic little village where her _mother_ tried some grand escape and got herself knocked out. Thrown into a pit a minute later, Emma tended to the prone woman.

“She’s going to be all right,” said a voice in the dark. A voice that made Emma shudder as years of Regina’s memories flooded her mind. _God. No._

“Who are you?” Emma asked needlessly as the evil woman stepped forward into the light. 

“I’m Cora.” The woman dropped her touch to Snow and Emma stamped down the desire to clasp her hands around the woman’s neck and make her pay for the misery she gave her daughter and to get those dark hands off her mother’s body. “She’ll be fine. I promise.”

Emma turned away from her in case her revenge-filled eyes gave something away. “What is this place? Where are we?”

“They call it The Haven.”

“A haven? From what?” _You?_ Emma added silently.

“The world is dangerous.”

 _With people like you in it? You’re damn right, sister._ “Why put us down here, we did nothing wrong,” Emma said, voicing her thoughts.

“Neither did I,” said Cora, her demeanour like a poor innocent woman in purgatory.

 _Like hell you didn’t_ , thought Emma. “Then why are you down here?”

“I’m here because of something ... my daughter did. The curse that ravaged this land, my daughter did it.”

Emma thought that almost sounded proud. _Time to sound surprised, Swan._ “Regina? _You’re_ Regina’s mother?”

“Yes, but you’ve nothing to fear from me. The apple fell _very_ far from the tree.”

_Yes, it did. Regina is nothing like the evil bitch you are._

“You’re from over there, aren’t you? How’d you get back?”

Emma heard alarm bells. Cora sounded intrigued, desperate and wanting. Before she was able to tell the cruel witch exactly where she could shove any notions of reaching Storybrooke where the sun didn’t shine, Mary Margaret roused.

“Emma?”

“Oh, you’re awake. I’m so relieved,” said Cora, all sweet and sticky with false care.

Emma turned and pulled Mary Margaret back to whisper, “As bad as you think the Evil Queen might be, this woman is worse.”

Cora’s eyebrow raised in an expression that she had no doubt passed to her daughter. “Oh, Snow,” she said to Mary Margaret whose expression looked instantly wary and confused. “Snow, please, believe me. Whatever Regina has told you isn’t true. I just want to help you.”

 _Lies. A big pack of stinking, rotten lies,_ Emma thought, still unwilling to tip her hand. Patiently, she let this snivelling woman have her say, while quietly working on a plan to get as far away from her as she could. Cora, Queen of Hearts, manipulator of innocent daughters, killer of True Loves, and master bitch. Emma didn’t trust her as far as she could kick her.

“Let’s hear her out,” Snow whispered at Emma’s back.

Emma, protectively standing in front of her mother said, “Mary Margaret.”

“Emma, we’re at the bottom of a hole with no way out. Henry and Regina are in Storybrooke.”

“Who’s Henry?” Cora asked.

“Her son. She shares him with Regina.”

“Mary Margaret! Don’t talk to her!” Emma snapped.

“Why ever not, dear?” Cora asked.

Emma turned and glared at her, dropping all pretences. “Because I know you. I know what you did to Regina. You are an evil witch that had no business torturing her own daughter!”

“Torturing her,” Cora said, stepping back with a gasp and look of utter devastation. “She told you that?”

“No.”

Cora blinked. “I assure you—”

“I _saw_ what you did. I felt it, and you can stay the hell away from me and my mother!”

“Your … mother?” Cora looked back at Snow and a cruel kind of smile grew on her face. “ _You’re_ the Saviour?”

“Damn right I am.”

“Enough!” came a voice followed by a rope from above. “Our leader requests an audience.”

*****

“Snow?” said a large, scary-looking black man.

Mary Margaret looked at Emma then back to the imposing man. “Umm … hi?”

“Snow,” the man said firmly, rushing over and hugging Mary Margaret.

“Who are you?” Emma asked as her mother’s eyes bugged out of her head.

“Lancelot.”

“Seriously?” Emma let her head drop forward and she rubbed her forehead. _Is every damn story true? I swear, if I find out Frankenstein is …_ Emma gasped and looked at her mother horrified as Regina’s memories told her exactly who Frankenstein was in Storybrooke. _Ew_ _. Whale. Ew. No, just …_ Emma groaned. There was no escaping the fact that her mother had a one night stand with the monster himself. That was just so—

“Emma!”

“Huh?” She looked up at Mary Margaret, startled.

“Umm … Lancelot here invited us to a banquet. Apparently I know him.”

“You don’t remember me?” Lancelot asked her.

Mary Margaret shook her head. “Sorry. No.”

“She’s still under the curse.”

Lancelot frowned.

“Regina gave everyone in Storybrooke alternate identities,” Emma explained. “She’s still Mary Margaret. Meek and mild school teacher.”

“I’m not _meek and mild_.”

“Uh, yeah, you are.”

“No,” Mary Margaret said with a whine. “I’m wild. I do cool stuff. I … I have one night stands and affairs with married men.”

Emma grimaced and shuddered. Mary Margaret looked a little uncomfortable that she blurted that out.

“Right, well … a feast!” Lancelot said, looking awkward and like he was wishing that topic had never come up.

*****

“What the hell is that?” Emma said cautiously. 

“That is Chimera. An acquired taste, but all our hunting party could bring back. Part lion, part serpent, one part goat.”

Emma grimaced and swore she almost threw up in her mouth. What the hell kind of animal was that! _Chimera._ Accessing Regina’s memories, she first smiled that the woman was still with her in some way, then winced and looked at the meat with distaste. Regina didn’t like it. Emma stabbed at it. “So it’s like Turkducken?”

Lancelot frowned with confusion.

“Never mind. So … how did you all escape the curse?”

“We don’t know. It is a mystery. The curse struck and when the coast cleared, most of us were torn from this land. Some of us in this region remained behind. We don’t know how … or why.”

Emma nodded and filled up her plate with foods she recognised. Including an entire onion. _Dubious choice_ , she thought, staring at it for a moment and considering whether she could eat it like an apple.

“Worry not,” Lancelot said as Emma frowned. “You’re safe here.”

“Oh, we’re not staying. I have to get back to Henry, to Re—umm …” Emma cleared her throat, not meaning to bring up the name of the curse caster. She doubted these people would accept that the once Evil Queen had changed and was now Emma, the Saviour’s, True Love. She eyed Mary Margaret. How is _she_ going to take the news once Snow White comes out of her cursed shell? “And Mary Margaret has to get back to David, her umm … affair? Husband? Prince Charming?” Emma said, uncertain how to finish that sentence. With the curse not really lifted, was Mary Margaret still a mistress despite the clear fact she was married to David Nolan in another reality. Emma pinched the bridge of her nose feeling a headache coming on.   “Can you help us find a portal?”

“Leaving is unwise. The Enchanted Forest is not as you remember,” Lancelot said. He cocked his head at Mary Margaret. “Perhaps not as you _don’t_ remember?” His face took on a pained expression. “Anyway! The Ogres have returned.”

“Ogres? As in fee-fi-fo-fum?” Emma asked, then remembered from Regina’s heart memories exactly what they were. “Oh.” _Bad_.

“Please, stay here, there are no more portals left,” Lancelot said.

Emma’s face fell and she stared at her onion. There has to be a—“I might know of one,” she said quickly, and thankful Regina had given her so much knowledge. She turned and smiled at Mary Margaret. “I think I know how we can get home.”

“Where? How?” Lancelot said.

“I …” Emma looked towards the pit. “No. Cora is near. She’s … powerful.”

“Not anymore. The curse stripped her powers.”

Emma took a deep breath. “I don’t care. She’s … I don’t trust her. I know of a way. Trust me. Let us go.”

“On one condition. Take my bravest warrior with you. Mulan …” he said, calling over the woman that had dragged Emma and Mary Margaret’s arse halfway across this godforsaken place. “She will take care of you.”

“We can defend ourselves.”

“Deal,” said Mary Margaret.

“What? Mary Margaret. No!”

“Emma, look at her. She’s … scary.”

Emma cast a glare at Mulan and stood. “We don’t need her.”

“Have you ever _seen_ an ogre?” Mulan asked her.

“No.” 

“Then you will not survive.”

“I killed a dragon last week,” Emma said. 

Mary Margaret gasped. “You did _what?_ A dragon! Where did you find a dragon?”

“Umm … under the library. One of Regina’s buddies.”

Mulan stepped into Emma’s personal space. She smelled like old leather and sweat. “Legend has it, when Ogres kill you, the last thing you see is yourself dying in the reflection of their eyes.”

Emma rolled her eyes. _Great, another drama queen._ “Whatever. Come on, Mary Margaret.”

“Emma! Wait! How do you even know where to go?”

A fair question that earned Emma an intrigued look from Lancelot and Mulan.

“I just do, okay?”

Mary Margaret shook her head. “I want Mulan to come.”

“No.”

“Emma.”

“We don’t need her.”

“ _I_ do,” Mary Margaret insisted. “Besides, what can it hurt?”

“Ugh. Fine. Whatever. Let’s just go already. I want to go home.”

Mary Margaret nodded. “Me too.”

*****

“So … how are we going to get home?” Mary Margaret whispered soon after Aurora decided to jump from the bushes in an attempt to kill Emma in retaliation for Phillip’s fate.

Emma looked at Mary Margaret, impressed that it had taken this long to ask the question. They’d been stomping through the wooded wasteland for hours. “A wardrobe.”

“Huh?”

“You … umm … you sent me to Storybrooke, or Maine anyway, in a wardrobe just after I was born.”

Mary Margaret gasped. “I did what? No!”

“It’s okay. It was the only chance to get me out so I could break the curse.”

Mary Margaret’s hand was over her mouth. “No. that’s just awful. How did we know where you’d end up? You were _hours_ old! Oh, my God. What if … what if no one had found you?” Mary Margaret looked appalled, devastated, and a little green.

Emma had thought all those things and more as she grew up knowing she was abandoned in the woods. Only, she wasn’t alone. “Pinocchio was with me.”

Mary Margaret winced. “We sent you to another realm with a puppet?”

Emma burst out laughing. _My life is absurd_ , she thought after Mulan gave her a stern look to quiet down. “He’s a _real_ boy,” Emma said, unable to stop chuckling. “Remember the guy with the motorbike? August, the writer?”

“Yes.”

“ _That’s_ Pinocchio all grown up. Turns out, however, that he ran off on his big brother duties.” Emma took a deep breath. “I ended up alone.” Like always. She sighed and wished Regina was beside her. Somehow, their two lonely hearts made peace ricochet between them. The only peace she had ever truly known. Of course, she’d only known it inside the landscape of Regina’s heart.

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret said, reaching out and touching her arm. “I’m sorry. I also hope there was a good reason we did what we did.” She let her arm drop, shaking her head as she did so.

“Yeah, there was. I was destined to break the curse. I’m True Love’s child, the only person able to break the Queen’s curse and restore your memories. Only …” Emma shrugged. “So far, all I‘ve managed to do is enable Henry to hate his mother, chop down an apple tree, get involved in a relationship I wasn’t able to remember until we came here, and convince the Evil Queen to break her own curse.”

“Regina wants her curse broken?”

Emma nodded. “She does.” Emma smiled. “She’s changing.”

Mary Margaret touched her arm. “I’m glad.”

*****

Trying to supress the whole ‘nearly-just-got-eaten-by-an-ogre’ thing, Emma was relieved to have Mulan, her reluctant saviour, pointing out the castle in the glow of the moonlight.

“That’s Snow’s castle?” Emma said, wanting it confirmed.

“Yes.”

“Wow,” Mary Margaret whispered as she stepped beside Emma. “I _lived_ there?”

“Let’s move,” Mulan said, marching the four of them on. Emma threw a glance at Aurora to make sure she wasn’t about to be ambushed again. The woman had jumped from the bushes in an assassination attempt well before the ogre tried to eat her. Mulan had stepped in and calmed the agitated woman. Personally, Emma understood. If Regina had been taken from her by the wraith, revenge upon Rumple would have been swift. As it was, she felt terrible that Phillip had fallen victim to the black-cloaked dementor.

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. _Dementors, dark witches, wannabe assassins, and ogres … what next?_

*****

The castle looked like it had been ransacked. Furniture was tipped, tapestries were torn, and it was dark and dusty. Using Regina’s memories of the castle layout, Emma led them to the tower housing the room that was once her nursery. Walking in, she gasped. It was huge, and decadent furnishings lay haphazardly around the stone floor.

“This is your nursery?” Mary Margaret asked, walking in and picking up a fragile unicorn mobile from the floor.

“Yeah. I guess. I’m not sure it counts though. I never got to use it.” She searched the room and found the cupboard. She stepped over to it and fingered the wood, feeling its unusual warmth. “This is how you sent me to our world.” Emma felt relief in the magic she could feel, but hopelessness followed. Now she had the wood, how did she activate it?  “Where’s the on switch?” she said to herself, then heard Mulan scoff from across the room. _Stupid know-it-all warrior princess._ She glared at the wardrobe as though it would give her an answer. How could this possibly transport them across realms? 

“Climb in,” she said to Mary Margaret.

“What?”

“Get in. I want to see if it still works.”

“I-I … no. I’m not good with small spaces.”

“You’re braver than you think, trust me. Get in.”

Mary Margaret wrung her hands out a couple of times before reluctantly climbing in. “Just don’t shut—never mind,” she said, her voice muted as Emma shut the doors. 

“Are you still in there?”

“Yes. Now please get me out.”

Opening the doors, Emma stared at the cupboard. “I wonder if you can charge this thing.”

“I don’t think it has batteries, Emma.”

“You never know.” Frowning at the furniture, she cocked her head and said, “I wonder if anyone back at camp would know what to do? But how do we carry it there?”

“With a help of a friend?” a deep voice said.

Emma and Mary Margaret jumped and squealed respectively as Lancelot emerged from the darkened passageway.

“How did you get here?” Emma said.

“We heard about the ogre attack so we came to investigate.”

Emma’s frown deepened. They hadn’t told anyone they were coming to the castle, so really, how did he know this is where he had to look to make sure they were okay? “Where’s Mulan and Aurora?”

“I sent them to find food. We’ll make camp and head back in the morning,” Lancelot answered before turning to study the wardrobe. “So, this the portal you’re after?”

“The same one I went through. It’s how I skipped the curse,” Emma said, feeling a cavern of loneliness accompany that statement. Mary Margaret gave her a smile and touched her shoulder.

“Remarkable,” Lancelot said quietly. 

“There’s no magic left in it,” Emma said, not liking the way the man practically fondled the wood.

“With a portal this powerful, there must be another way to recharge it.”

“Why are you so interested?” Emma said, remembering the man’s words about how dangerous it was to look for something like this.

“I just want you two to get home. To your prince charming, and your son. To Henry. They must miss you.”

Emma’s blood ran cold and with little warning, she pulled the sword Mary Margaret wore from its holster and rounded it on Lancelot, pushing Mary Margaret behind her in the process.

“Emma? What are you doing!” Mary Margaret said.

“He isn’t who he says he is.”

“What are you talking about? Who is he? King Arthur!”

“There’s only one person who we told Henry’s name to. Cora.”

Purple smoke erupted from where Lancelot stood to reveal Cora. Mary Margaret and Emma both shook their heads in astonishment. 

“Woah,” Emma muttered before firming her stance with the sword.

“Clever girl,” Cora said. 

Emma lunged for her, only to find Cora’s magic picking her up and tossing her across the room to pin her to the wall. Mary Margaret stood stock still and fainted. _Useful_ , Emma groaned silently. 

“Thank you, _Emma_. I’ve been looking for a way over for a _long_ time. I never thought the person that would help me find it would be you. Daughter of Snow White.”

Emma saw Mary Margaret rouse herself in her peripheral vision. “Why are you doing this?” she choked out.

“I just want to see my daughter, and I want to meet my grandson, Henry.”

Emma’s blood boiled protectively at the sound of her son’s name falling from the lips of this demon witch. “No you won’t.” Pooling magic at her fingers as she thought of the way Regina’s heart burned hot with rage, she followed her instincts and let the magic loose. Cora’s bond to the wall evaporated, and the cupboard went up in flames. 

“You! You have magic!” Cora said, as she stumbled back with shock. Mulan returned at that moment and Cora waved her hand to disappear in a wash of smoke.

“Where’d she go?” Mary Margaret asked.

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know, but be happy she’s gone.” She looked at the cupboard reduced to ash. Their best shot was gone. Her way back to Henry and Regina burned to the ground. Nothing could restore the hope she had lost. Nothing. 

“And so is our way home,” Mary Margaret said.

Emma began to nod and then gasped. A smile grew on her face. _Thank you, Regina,_ she thought and searched for something to scoop ashes into. “We haven’t lost yet.” Finding a small bag on the floor, she scooped some warm ashes into it. _I’m coming home, Regina. I promise._

“But it’s burned to the ground,” Mulan said.

“Yes. It is, but it can be restored. I only hope Cora doesn’t realise that.”


	14. smelly things

“Where is she? Where is Emma?” Henry said, rushing to his mother’s side soon after she pinned David to the wall with vines. The infuriating man had lashed out at her demanding to know where Mary Margaret and Emma had gone. Refusing to see reason and disbelieving that magic was real, she showed him first-hand what her reinstated powers could do. 

Henry noticed the man who would be his grandfather pinned to the wall. “Uh … Mum?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Umm … what’s with the vines?”

Regina shrugged and ignored David’s muffled pleas. “He was annoying me.”

“Mum, you need to let him down.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Regina sighed long and hard and waved her arm, releasing the man from his bindings. He dropped to the floor with a satisfying thud.

“Where’s Emma?” Henry asked again.

Regina bowed her head. “She’s gone.”

“Gone? Where?” Henry looked around, seeing nothing but charred wood and a flattened hat.

“I don’t know, Henry. We were trying to vanquish a wraith and she and Mary Margaret were pulled into a portal.”

“A portal?”

“Possibly to the Enchanted Forest, however, I’m not certain of whether it still exists.”

“So they … so Emma …?”

Regina gave Henry a sad smile and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m confident that wherever Miss Swan is, that she’ll stumble about like the Charming that she is and manage to find her way home. She’s nothing if not lucky.”

Henry crashed against his Mum’s body and hugged her fiercely. “We have to help her.”

As Regina clutched at her son, she sighed with defeat. “I don’t know how.”

“I believe in you, Mum. I know you can help them,” Henry said, pulling back and giving her a look of pure trust. A look he no-doubt inherited from his birth mother.

Regina smiled and ran her knuckles across his cheek. The hope in his eyes fuelled her and she held back a sigh of relief that her son was on her side. She couldn’t bare losing him now, not when … she sighed. Not when she had lost Emma.

*****

They sat at the kitchen counter, side-by-side, staring glumly at the book of fairy tales. Regina had spent the morning confronting Rumple and trying to figure out how to get her magic back. Apparently the vine trick she pulled on David had tapped out her magical resources gifted to her from Emma. Getting her mother’s spell book had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, it sat as though cursed beside Henry’s book. The idea of touching it made her skin crawl. She had come so far with Emma by her side, that she was uncertain how to control the darkness inside her without the Saviour’s presence.

David Nolan’s annoying presence made itself known with a sigh and a slurp of coffee that Regina begrudgingly made for him. Henry had suggested they needed his help on Operation Scorpion and so far, the clueless idiot had tipped some Rumple-potion on Jefferson’s squished and unrepairable hat to no avail.

“The Enchanted Forest …” Henry started. “Is it … does it … exist?”

Regina looked at her son. “Yes. The Enchanted Forest is still out there.”

David shook his head, still trying to understand how magic and another realm was even possible.

“And … so are they,” Henry said.

Regina nodded, wrapping an arm around her son and pulling him comfortingly against her side. “Yes, they are.”

“But … how do we know they … survived the trip there?”

Regina’s heart clenched at the idea that Emma didn’t make it, but it soon warmed with certainty. She kissed Henry’s hair and smiled to herself. About to answer, David uncannily echoed her thoughts, “Because I can feel it.”

 _Ugh. If he says something about finding Snow White, I’m going to poke his eyes out_ , Regina thought, then recalled with relief that he didn’t remember being Prince Charming. Smiling, it was soon wiped from her face.

“We’ll find them,” he said confidently. Then with a faraway look in his eyes, he added, “Always.”

Regina groaned. How could her curse be so flawed that it made David Nolan as insufferable as Prince Charming.

Henry and David shot her a confused look and Regina ignored them to pick up her mother’s spell book.

David eyed it warily. “So that’s … magic?”

“Mmm.”

“Will it help us get Emma and Mary Margaret back?” Henry asked, not for the first time.

Regina shook her head again. “It will _hopefully_ bring my magic back … however …” She sighed. While having magic at her beck and call after Emma’s touch, it had faded away sharply. She was scared of the power that this dark book could return to her. It wouldn’t be like the magic the Saviour had spurred, but more akin to her mother’s dark will. Once a terrifying queen of evil proportions, she grimaced at the meek mayor the curse had made her into. Glancing up and seeing David’s sceptical expression despite the fact he had now battled a wraith and watched his family fall through a portal, she smirked.

Opening the book to a page with a brown-inked tree on it, she gave Henry an unsure smile, then blew across the page. The ink dissolved and fell from the page in a dusty mix of hovering particles. Inhaling long and deep, magic, sharp and bitter, filled her lungs and spread like a wildfire through her blood.

“Ah!” Henry exclaimed as Regina felt her eyes burn with renewed magic.

“Sorry, dear. An unfortunate side effect.”

“Your eyes were … _glowing!_ ” David said, looking rather unnerved. 

Regina smiled her best evil queen smile. “Magic, dear.”

*****

“They’re all dead!” Mary Margaret shouted with horror when they returned to the haven. Emma had been unwilling to return here considering Lancelot’s deception, but Mulan had been determined.

“What did this?” Mulan said, walking from body to body.

“This looks like Cora’s work,” Emma said, wishing she didn’t know the modus operandi of the woman. “Their hearts have been removed.”

Mary Margaret ran to the nearest tree an upended her stomach.

 _Ew_. A waving hand caught Emma’s attention. “I’ve a live one here!” Helping Mulan lift a pile of wood and rags off a man, Emma spotted his face and growled. “Hook!”

“I’m sorry, love, have we had the pleasure of crossing paths before?” the man said, all swagger and charm.

“No,” Emma said, recalling Regina’s dealings with this double-crossing pirate. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m simply an innocent bystander—”

“Bullshit!” Emma shouted, taking the man by the scruff of his neck and shoving him against the nearest structure. An ogre growled in the distance at Emma’s shout and a cruel smile grew on her face. “Tie him to the tree,” she said, helping Mulan strap the man with a thick rope.

“Wait! What are you doing?” Hook said.

“Leaving you here for the ogres.”

“For what reason? I’m a simple blacksmith.”

Emma scoffed. “ _That’s_ what you’re going with?”

Hook glared at her. “I know this land well, I can guide you.”

“You’re not going to guide us anywhere. What you _can_ do, is tell us what Cora is up to.”

“Cora? I know not of this Cora.”

Emma shook her head. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.” Emma whistled and an ogre growled nearby. “Goodbye, Hook.”

Turning, Emma walked away, followed reluctantly by the remainder of her party who had thankfully kept silent.

“Wait! You can’t just leave me here like this!” Hook called out.

“What if he’s telling the truth?” Aurora said.

“He’s not.”

 “Good for you!” Hook yelled.

Emma paused.

“You bested me. I can count on one hand the amount of people who have done that.”

Emma turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that supposed to be funny?” An ogre growled. “Hurry up, they’re getting closer. If you don’t want to be dinner, I suggest you start talking.”

Hook sighed and gave Emma a smug scowl. “Cora asked me to gain your trust and learn everything there is to know about your _Storybrooke_. She didn’t want any surprises when she finally got over there.”

Emma frowned. “She can’t get there, we destroyed the wardrobe.” She shrugged her shoulder, feeling the weight of ashes in her pocket.

“Ah, but the enchantment remains. Cora collected the ashes.”

 _Damn._ Emma took a deep breath. _She can’t let Cora cross the realms. She would sooner die than let that evil woman anywhere near Regina and Henry._

“Now, if you’ll kindly cut me loose?” Hook said as the trees began to shiver and crack across the field.

“No!” Mulan said, making her stand. “He is collaborating with Cora. She killed the settlers at the Haven. He can die and pay for his sins.”

Emma nodded in agreement, and while the thought of sending someone to their death felt uncomfortable, the group turned as one and walked away.

“Wait!” Hook screamed. “You need me alive!”

 _Ugh._ “Why? Emma asked.

“Because we both need the same thing. To get back to your land. I had arranged transport with Cora, but I’m willing to offer you the same deal.”

Emma raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll help you if you promise to take me along.”

Laughing, Emma said, “And just how are you going to _lend a hand_?”

Hook glared. “The ashes open a portal, but to get to your land, you need directions.”

“Directions? What, like a map?”

“There is an enchanted compass.”

Emma hung her head. _Of course there was._

“I’ll help you obtain it.”

Emma stared at Hook for a heartbeat, ignoring the pleas behind her to hurry. “Fine.” Quickly cutting him free, they fled the approaching ogres.

*****

“Henry!” Regina yelled, running to her son’s rooms at his screams.

“Mum! I just had the worst nightmare!”

“It’s over now. You’re okay.” Regina pulled him tight against her. “Shh …”

“I was in this room, and … it was red. And there were no doors, no windows, and these curtains … they were on fire. I was in this corner, and, and, I was looking up, and there was someone else there, and they were looking at me …”

Regina hugged him against her chest. “It’s okay, Henry, it’s just a bad dream.” Kissing the brow of his head, Regina frowned.


	15. Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum

Keeping an eye on Aurora, who had disturbingly woken with a scream, Emma ground to a halt when she was confronted by a giant beanstalk. _Oh, hell no!_

“Don’t tell me,” she said as the entire group peered up at the stalk disappearing into the clouds above them. “A guy named Jack, a cow, something about evil giants, treasure and a golden goose … or was it harp?”

Hook scoffed loudly. “What a lovely story, however, what are you talking about?”

“Jack and the beanstalk,” Emma said, waving at the evidence before them.

Hook frowned. “Right. Well, in _my_ world, the giants were evil creatures that grew magic beans to plunder all the lands.”

“Wait, beans make portals? I thought they just grew these things?” Emma waved at the stalk again.

“Ah, no. _Jack_ fought in a terrible war, and they defeated all but one. The beans were destroyed in the war. The giants died deciding if they couldn’t have their magic, the no one could.”

Emma screwed her face up in thought. “Evil giants with magic portal beans … why doesn’t someone just go up and grow some more?”

“Because the most terrible giant survived. In order to get your compass, Miss Swan, we will have to get past him to get the magic compass.”

Emma groaned. _Of course_.

“The treasure remains, and amongst it, the magic compass, and it will guide us to your land.”

“Fine. Let’s climb,” Emma said walking towards the vine.

“Wait. The vine is enchanted to repel intruders.”

“Oh, come _on!_ ” Emma whined. _Why does getting back to Regina and Henry have to be so damn hard!_

“I have a counter spell.” Hook held up his hands. “If you would be so kind?”

 _Ugh._ Emma walked over and tore the binds off him and he revealed a bracelet that glowed yellow. Hook leaned in close and uncomfortable and winked.

“Thank you, my lady.”

Emma grimaced at him.

“I have another of these,” he said, holding it up. “Now, which of you lovelies wants to come along? Go on, fight it out. Don’t be afraid to _really_ get into it.”

“You’re a pig,” Emma said, snatching the enchanted bracelet from him. “Now quit yapping and start climbing.”

*****

Unfortunately, Hook didn’t know how to shut up, and halfway up the vine, he started. “First beanstalk?” he asked. Emma glared at him. “You never forget your first.”

Emma rolled her eyes. _Is this guy for real?_

“You know, many men would consider your silence off-putting, but … I love a challenge.”

Emma looked for a piece of vine she could cut loose to send this man tumbling to his death. She couldn’t spot one. “I’m concentrating,” she muttered back.

“No. You’re afraid to talk. To _reveal_ things. Trust me, things’ll be a lot smoother if you do.”

Emma shook her head and stepped up further.

“You know,” Hook said as he peered down at her still. “You’re somewhat of an open book.”

“Is that right?”

“Quite. Let’s see … you volunteered to climb up here because you were the most motivated. You have a child.”

“I volunteered because Mary Margaret is delicate, Aurora is fragile and Mulan can fight and keep them both safe. Don’t presume to know me.”

Hook smirked. “No. You don’t want to abandon your child the way you were.”

“Excuse me?”

“I spent time in Neverland, I know the look an orphan gets in their eyes, and you have that, love.”

“Yeah, well, my world ain’t Neverland.” _More like Alice down the rabbit hole with a shot of hallucinogenic drugs._

“An orphan’s an orphan. Love has been all too rare in your life, hasn’t it?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him.

“Have you ever been in love?”

Emma felt her heart warm with thoughts of Regina. Her somewhat alternate-reality love affair burned brightly inside her. To Hook, she said, “No. I’ve never been in love.” _There was no way she was letting this man have more information than he required. Not when Cora lurked so near._

*****

Emma knocked out the giant with some freaky powder Mulan had given her and began her search for the compass. Of course, Hook, the arrogant pirate, swaggered about taking his time. 

“Come _on!_ ” Emma growled at him.

“What’s the rush, love?”

“How long do you think magic knock-our powder works?” Emma frowned, searching Regina’s knowledge and coming up with figures she didn’t like.

“I don’t know,” Hook answered as he sniffed a gold coin. _Ew_ _._

“Exactly.” Walking further into the room of treasure, Emma came across a skeleton on the floor and shuddered. “Creepy.”

“That would be Jack the giant killer.”

Emma looked at the sword Jack had and compared it to the monstrous giant they’d just knocked out. “It’s a toothpick.”

“I assure you, it packs quite the wallop,” Hook said, walking backwards.

“Wait!” Emma called when she spotted the wire at his feet and grabbed him. The lecherous creep wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

“It’s about bloody time.”

 _Oh, hell no!_ Emma forced herself away from his octopus grip. “Trip wire.”

Hook leered at her. “I don’t mind what excuse you have, but please, you don’t need to stand on ceremony just to get close to me.”

Emma felt magic tickle at her hands. _I wonder if I could make one of those Regina-esque fireballs and erase this disgusting human from existence?_ A few minutes later after the giant awoke and captured her, squeezing her tight in his hands, she almost wished it was Hook. _Ugh, what am I thinking! Being squeezed to death is better than being fondled to death at the smelly pirate’s hands._

*****

Compass in hand, a pirate trapped on the top of a beanstalk, and a giant that allowed her to escape, Emma figured she would have used up all the luck she had left. From here, she’d have to claw her way out of this realm back to Storybrooke. She was wrong.

Aurora, waking from yet another nightmare, gasped and stared at her. It was eerie and Emma took a step back.

“I spoke to Henry.”

Emma choked. “You what?”

“I saw him in my dream.”

 _Sure you did._ “Ah … okay.” Emma cast a dubious look to Mary Margaret. “And, uh … what did he say?”

“Just his name.”

“Right. Well. Next time, why don’t you try asking him to ask his Mum to help us out of here? Some insight on how to keep out of Cora’s way would help.”

Aurora nodded. “I shall.”

Frowning, Emma cocked her head. “Wait. You’re serious right now?” Stepping closer, she said, “You really saw Henry?”

Aurora responding smile stole Emma’s breath right from her lungs as hope took its place instead.


	16. squid ink, heart grabbing, and burns

“Henry! Henry!” Regina said, shaking her groaning son from slumber. 

He woke with a start and sat up quickly. “Mum?”

“It’s okay, Henry. You’re safe.”

He breathed rapidly, disturbs by his dreams. “I was in the room again. It was burning!”

Regina pulled him closer, wishing she could protect him from the nightmares in his sleep, but there was little she could do. _She_ had been the one to give him these nightmares. _She_ was the one that cursed him to sleep after all. Once Rumple informed her that people once cursed by a sleeping spell often dreamt of their time in their cursed slumber. Regina would sacrifice her life to save Henry from such a burden. “Shh … you’re okay now. Your nightmares can’t hurt you, honey.” Fingering the necklace Rumple had given him to help control his dreams, she frowned. This was supposed to help.

Sighing, Regina gasped when Henry said, “There was someone else there. A woman.”

“There was someone else in the room?”

Henry nodded and Regina’s heart broke. _I did this to him_ , she thought as she hugged him close again.   _I cursed my own son to a lifetime of nightmares._

“She said her name was Aurora. She said she was with Emma. They’re alive. Emma and Mary Margaret are alive!”

Regina’s world spun. “What?”

Henry grinned at her as the terror of the dream faded. “She said they have a way home.”

Regina’s hand went to her mouth. _Emma._ _My bumbling Saviour._ “I knew it. I knew they’d find a way home.” 

“Aurora said there’s someone in their way. That they needed help to defeat her. They say Mr Gold can help.”

 _The imp?_ Frowning, Regina asked, “Who are they trying to defeat?”

“Cora.”

Regina’s blood ran cold. _No! She’s dead!_

*****

Seeking out Rumplestiltskin was easy. Getting the infuriating imp to help her … not so much. 

“Whatever it is you want, dearie, you’re not getting.”

Regina sneered at him. “I need help with the one thing that can unite us,” she said, leaning low and dangerous.

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“Cora.”

The smug expression fell immediately from the Dark One’s face. 

Weaving a white lie to gain the man’s assistance, she said, “She’s coming from our land. I need your help to stop her.”

Belle, who Regina had released in a bout of guilt frowned at them from across the table at the diner. 

“She was dead,” Rumple said. “You told me you saw the body.”

“Well, apparently, you taught her well. She alive, she’s on her way, and I don’t think I need to remind you how unpleasant that will be for both of us.”

“You mean for you? I can handle Cora.”

 _Slippery eel._ “That’s not how she tells the story,” Regina said. 

“I _won_ in the end.”

“Maybe … but there’s a big difference this time.” Regina looked at Belle. “This time, you have a weakness.”

“Where is she now?” Rumple said after deliberating his choices.

“She’s with _them_ ,” Regina said, knowing he knew of Emma and Mary Margaret’s fate.

“Fine,” Rumple snapped.

And that’s how they ended up in Rumple’s shop, Henry lying on a bed and David watching Regina and Rumple warily.

“So, Cora … she’s powerful?” Henry asked.

“Not as powerful as me,” Rumple said. 

“Debatable,” Regain muttered, tucking her son in with his blanket from his own bed. “You okay to do this, honey?”

Henry nodded. “I’m done reading about heroes, I want to _be_ one.”

“Oh, Henry.” Regina stroked the hair at his brow. _The damn Charming blood and their need to save the world._ Regina smiled indulgently. _Like mother, like son._ Leaning down, she kissed his cheek. Turning to Rumple, she said, “Do it. Make it quick.”

Rumple sat down beside her son and began to whisper to him, his hands waving over Henry’s face slowly. The overwhelming need to rush in and push the imp away from her innocent boy was fierce. Gritting her teeth, she hoped silently that this was going to be worth it.

A short while later, her son woke with a start.

“Henry!” Regina rushed to his side.

“Something’s wrong!” he called out. 

“Henry, are you okay?”

He shook his head. 

“Did you tell them how to defeat Cora?”

“No. Something happened. I didn’t get the chance.” Henry hissed as he tried to sit up. 

“Henry?”

Her son pulled back his sleeve and the burn mark on his skin turned Regina’s stomach. “No.”

Rumple moved in and inspected the wound. “Was Aurora there in the room with you?” he asked.

Henry nodded. “But she was sucked out before I could tell her anything.”

Rumple nodded. “It appears her soul was torn out of the dream before she was ready, resulting in Henry’s injuries. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse. I suggest he recovers for a time before returning to the room.”

“Out of the question!” Regina snapped. “I’m not risking his life again!”

“Mind your tone, Your Majesty. I understand your concern, but you must consider Cora. Without our help, your precious Emma will soon be dead.” Rumple stepped closer to Regina. “I don’t need to create another monster, thank you very much.”

Regina scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like I said once before, I have plans, and for that, I don’t require the services of the Evil Queen. You’ve done your duty, I’ve given you its reward, and now I need you out of the way. What I don’t need, is for your heart to break again. I don’t have the time to deal with you.”

“You little snake!” Regina lunged for the man’s throat, only to have David hold her back. Her throat burned and her eyes stung at the confirmation that her entire life was nothing but a journey dictated by the hands of the cruel, dark heart of Rumplestiltskin. “I’m going to _end_ you!”

Rumple grinned. “No, dearie, you won’t. However, Cora _will_ end Emma. Without Henry’s help, I can guarantee that. So, Your Majesty, what will it be? True Love, or your son’s well-being?”

Regina growled and forcibly removed herself from David’s grip. 

About to lunge for the imp again, she stopped when Henry said, “Mum?”

Taking a long breath through her nose, she calmed herself and turned to her son.

“What does he mean, your True Love?”

Regina cleared her throat. This wasn’t going to be easy to explain. 

Rumple chuckled behind her. “You see, dear Henry, when your mother cast the dark curse with the essence of True Love on the parchment, she redesigned her destiny.”

Whirling on the man, Regina whispered, “What?”

Rumple grinned. “Did you not utter the words I so carefully crafted? Did you not inhale the smoke as it rose from the flames? By doing so, Your Majesty, you created your own True Love. Borne from the ashes, rising with the smoke, the daughter of the enemy became the saviour you were so afraid of.”

Regina, wide-eyed, shook her head at the man. “You mean, she was never here to destroy me?”

“Oh, I think she was. Is not the Evil Queen vanquished?”

“I …” Regina looked to the ground as she remembered how her heart had changed. Placing her hand over her heart, she took a deep breath.

“She destroyed the evil woman that cursed the enchanted forest inhabitants to this land.” Rumple giggled.

“Why would you do that? Why, after everything, would you pay me in kindness?”

The cruel twist of Rumple’s grin felt like ice through Regina’s veins. “I needed the Evil Queen gone. Without her darkness fuelling her magic, she is no longer a threat to me. Hear this, dearie, I will allow you your peace, but in return, you stay out of my way. Threaten me in any way, then consider your life void.”

Baring her teeth, Regina growled. Once again, she was being manipulated by a puppet, only for now, her master was benevolent. There was no way leaving Rumple to his own devices was a good idea. He knew she would step in and stop anything that would threaten her or those she cared for.

“Mum?”

Regina calmed herself once again and turned to her son.

“Emma, she’s your True Love?”

Regina glanced to the men hovering nearby, and with relief, they moved away to give her privacy. Looking at her hands and twisting them together she said quietly, “Yes, Henry.” Unwilling to look up and see the horror and disappointment in her son’s eyes, she prepared herself for his verbal onslaught.

“So … it was _you two_ that saved me from the sleeping curse, wasn’t it?”

Regina nodded and chanced a look up. Henry wasn’t looking at her, but he was deep in thought.

“Put me back under.”

“What! No, Henry, that’s not going to happen!” Regina collected his hand in hers. “I won’t allow it.”

“We have to bring her back, Mum. Without your true love, you’ll be lost again.”

“I …” Regina shook her head. “Honey, I want Emma back so, so much, but I’m not jeopardising your life to make that happen. Emma wouldn’t either.” Staring at her son for a moment, she said, “And Aurora was torn away. Even if you do go under, how do we know she’ll be back?”

Henry slumped. Running a hand through his hair, Regina froze. “Snow.”

“Huh?” Henry said, looking up.

“If I know anything about your grandmother, is that she’s resourceful.”

“You think Snow White will be waiting in the room?”

Regina nodded. She felt sure of it. Staring at Henry for a heartbeat, she looked to Rumple. “Put me under.”

“Under a sleeping curse?”

“Yes.”

Rumple chuckled. “Why, Your Majesty, if I had known it would be this easy to get rid of you, I would have thought of it much sooner.”

“Emma will come back. _She_ will wake her!”

“Time will tell, my boy,” Rumple said, looking too pleased to be safe for anybody involved.

“Henry is right. Miss Swan is more resourceful than her mother. She will find her way back here.” Regina shuddered. Why did she have to go and use the Charming go-to line. It felt … wrong.

“Very well. Good luck, Regina. You’re going to need it.” Rumple hobbled across the room and left.

“Where’d he go?” David asked.

“I don’t care. Right now, all I’m going to worry about is making a sleeping potion.” Regina stormed across the room and began rifling through Rumple’s equipment.

*****

“Smells funny,” Henry said, entering the room. 

Regina smiled as she dropped a crystal into the potion she was brewing. “I know sweetheart. It’s a curse, it’s not meant to be pleasant.”

“So the potion’s finished?”

Regina nodded as she crushed her final ingredient in a mortar and pestle. “Yes, honey.”

“And Mr Gold had everything you needed in his shop?”

“Yes. We’re almost ready.”

Henry leaned in and peered at the series of tubes and vials on the table. “So this is how you do it. Magic?”

Shrugged, Regina said, “Yes, but there are many ways. It’s never easy.”

“And … have you been using magic?”

Regina stopped and stared at her son. “No.” Reaching out to take his hand, she said, “Not until now.”

Henry smiled. “It’s okay. As long as you’re using it to help people.”

“I’m trying,” Regina said with a slight chuckle. _I’ll try anything to keep my family safe,_ she added as an afterthought.

Tipping the powder she crushed into the glass vial, the liquid fizzed and glowed. 

“Will you be okay?” Henry asked as they stared at the reaction.

“I’ll be … asleep.” Taking a deep breath. “And in there, I won’t die.”

“It should be _me_. I can go in there without a curse and still come back.”

“Henry, Emma and I have many differences, but on this, we would both agree. I’m not risking your safety. It’s not worth it.”

“But what if you don’t wake up.”

Regina ran a hand through his hair. “Then I best succeed.”

*****

“Wait! You’re sure about this?” Mary Margaret said, stepping away from Emma. 

“Very. You’ve been cursed before.”

“But I don’t remember it.”

Emma sighed. “I know … but we have to try.”

Mary Margaret eyed the sleeping powder they had made to render her unconscious and hopefully reach the netherworld where Aurora saw Henry. The woman, who had disappeared at Cora’s hand, was another they had to try and save from the ruthless witch. With that in mind, Mary Margaret nodded. “Okay, do it.”

Emma gave her a smile and blew the powder into her face. Mary Margaret fell forward and hit the dirt with a thud.

“Oops. Should have made her lie down first,” Emma said, grimacing at her mother. “Sorry,” she whispered as she rolled the woman’s face out of the mud.

*****

“Snow!” Regina screamed as she made her way through the maze of the netherworld. _Where was that damned woman?_ “Snow!” Regina tumbled through a dark wall into a furnace that burned and charred at her skin.

“Regina?”

“Snow!”

“Uh … yeah?”

Shaking her head at the uncertain sound of her nemeses’ voice, Regina tried again, “Mary Margaret, you need to listen to me.”

“Wait. Where’s Henry? Shouldn’t he be here?”

“I wouldn’t let him come back. It’s too dangerous.”

Mary Margaret nodded in understanding.

“Listen, we don’t have much time. Find the cell where you imprisoned Rumple—”

“What cell?”

Regina groaned. This was going to be harder than she thought. Thinking quickly, she said, “Emma, does she remember me?”

Mary Margaret frowned and nodded. “I assume so. She talks about you a bit. Actually, she seems quite familiar with this land. Curious.”

Regina nodded and thanked the Gods. “Tell Emma to go to Rumple’s cell. He has squid ink in there that will stun Cora and allow you to defeat her.”

Mary Margaret nodded. “Got it.”

Sighing with relief, Regina did the same. “Tell Emma …” Regina looked to the burning floor. “Tell her to come home.”

“I will.” Mary Margaret smiled and faded away, leaving Regina alone in the furnace of the netherworld.

Shielding herself from the flames as much as she could, she wished on every star that Emma would hurry.

*****

“Regina?” Emma said. “She shouldn’t even be in there. Henry sh—No! Damn her!” Emma yelled, causing Mary Margaret to flinch. “That stubborn, pig-headed woman!”

“What is it?” Mary Margaret asked as Emma silenced herself and began pacing.

“Regina, she’s cursed herself.”

Gasping, Mary Margaret said, “How do you … oh. True Love’s kiss, right?”

Emma nodded.

“Well that’s good, isn’t it? Didn’t you say she has another True Love?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“So he’ll wake her.” Mary Margaret grinned and clasped her hands together. Ever the romantic.

“Mmm. Rumple’s cell, she said? Squid ink?”

Mary Margaret nodded.

“Let’s go.” Charging off though the forest, Emma entertained herself with all the words she planned to scream at Regina when they returned. _Damn woman._

*****

It was dark, dingy and everything Emma remembered from Regina’s past. Rumplestiltskin’s cell. It was here she was prophesised to be the saviour. Holding up the lantern, she tried to spy the squid ink container she sought.

“Look everywhere. The man is a rat.”

Foraging around the cell, they found a disturbing scroll with nothing but Emma’s name scrawled all over it. With the feeling of ants crawling beneath her skin, Emma shivered with the sheer creepiness of its presence. _Why was Rumple so invested in her?_ Emma sighed. _The saviour thing._

“Here, an ink well,” Mary Margaret said, handing Emma an empty ink pot.

“It’s all gone,” Emma said, staring through the empty glass. Her hopes at surviving Cora diminished with each passing second. Looking up at Mulan and Aurora who were still with them, she noticed Aurora swiftly looked away from her. _Odd_. A second later, Aurora threw a rock at the lever keeping the cell open and they were suddenly trapped. “What the hell!” Emma screamed at her.

“Oh, dear, don’t blame her,” Cora’s smooth voice said from outside the cell. Whirling around, Emma growled at her and the hooked man beside her. With a flick of Cora’s wrist, the enchanted compass was in the witch’s possession.

“No!” Emma rattled the cell bars, desperation clawing at her movements. 

“Don’t waste your energy, dear, Rumple himself couldn’t escape from this cell. And Aurora?” Cora smirked and pulled a heart from her cape. “She was just doing what she was told.”

Mary Margaret squeaked. “Is that …?”

Cora smiled. “A heart.”

“Oh.” With a dull thud, Mary Margaret fainted.

Unable to focus on her mother, Emma instead glared at Cora who was chuckling at Mary Margaret’s prone form. 

“Forgive us,” Cora said, pulling her eyes from the woman on the floor. “But Storybrooke awaits.”

“No! Damn it! No!” Emma screamed at Cora and Hook as they sauntered down the darkened passage. _Regina. Henry_. Emma slumped to her knees. She had failed them. Regina was stuck in an eternal curse. _What kind of saviour am I?_ Emma questioned herself as her chest tightened and ached. “Regina,” she whispered in the muted light. Placing a hand over her chest, she searched her lover’s memories and came up with nothing that would break them free of this prison. Cora was right, if Rumple couldn’t escape, no one could.

A hand touched her knee and Emma jolted with surprise. “Mary Margaret,” Emma said, seeing who it was. Then she frowned. “Umm. Are you okay?”

Mary Margaret touched the cut on her cheek and nodded. “I’m fine. Are _you_ okay?”

Taking a deep breath, Emma let it all rush out. “No. I’m not okay. I’m not even close to being okay. In fact, okay left on a bus twenty eight years ago.”

Mary Margaret touched her shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”

Remorse flooded Emma’s body as she realised Mary Margaret was apologising for abandoning her as a baby. “It’s not your fault.”

Mary Margaret gave her a thin smile. “It’s not yours, either, but you’re the saviour, right? So we’ll win this. Good always wins.”

“You sound like Henry,” Emma said, sighing.

“He’s my grandson, isn’t he?”

Emma nodded.

“Then optimism runs in the family.”

Scoffing, Emma muttered, “It skipped a generation.”

Mary Margaret shook her head. “No, I don’t think it did.”

Inflamed at the woman’s outright need to see good in everyone and everything, Emma snapped, “I’m not a good person. I’m supposed to be saving everyone from Regina’s curse, but I haven’t even come close. In fact, sleeping with the enemy is all I’ve managed to do, and now I can’t even save her because Cora and Hook are on their way to Storybrooke.”

“Save Regina?” Mary Margaret said with a frown. “But only her True Love—oh! _You’re_ her True Love?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Emma said, covering her face with her hands, unwilling to witness her mother’s reaction to her sudden outing. I got us stranded here. I burned the wardrobe. I lost the compass to Cora. I got us trapped.” Emma lifted her head and looked at the cell. Rumplestiltskin’s cell. The puppet master. Shaking her head, she said, “The only reason I did anything is because Gold planned it.” Emma frowned. “Gold.” Snarling, she stood. “ _He_ did this.”

“What are you talking about?” Mary Margaret asked, rising to her feet.

“Gold. He told you I was going to be the saviour to Regina’s curse. It was his escape clause. Except, I didn’t break the curse you thought I was going to break.”

Mary Margaret blinked. “Huh?”

“The Dark Curse, the one Regina cast to send you all to Storybrooke, _that_ was the curse Gold said would break at my hands. Only, he lied. I saved Regina, not Storybrooke. I broke the curse on her heart.” Emma put her hand on her chest, feeling the swell of emotion there. “Everything I’ve ever done was for her.” Shutting her eyes and taking some comfort in her destiny, she snapped them back open when she reminded herself that Regina was in an eternal slumber. A bit of her heart broke. “He had it mapped out before I was even born. I’m no all-powerful saviour. I’m a pawn, and that’s exactly why we’re in here.” Emma dropped her head. “And now Cora is on her way to Storybrooke while I’m nothing but a name on a piece of paper.”

Rubbing her forehead, Emma frowned. “Shit!” she said as she turned her attention to the scroll. “Stupid, Emma. Stupid!”

“What is it? What’s happening?” Mary Margaret asked as Mulan and Aurora stepped away from the blonde.

“Magic.” Picking up the creepy name-paper, Emma blew gently across it, directing the now-floating ink to the cell doors. Opening, she took a deep, relieving breath. “The squid ink was on the scroll.”

“Uh … okay,” Mary Margaret said, gaping at the open cell doors. “Umm. Can we go now?”

“Absolutely.”

 


	17. no place like home

“No! No, no, no!” Emma screamed as Mary Margaret, Mulan and herself ran to the side of the swirling vortex that Emma knew was Lake Nostros. As they emerged from the tree line, they had witnessed Cora and Hook jump into the portal and vanish from sight. With no other option, Emma grabbed Mary Margaret’s hand and tugged her into the vortex at full pace.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret screamed as they fell into the swirling water.

Tumbled around like clothes in a dryer, the pair found themselves surrounded by water. Above them, a shimmer of light. Emma swan for it and broke the surface with a gasp, relieved to see Mary Margaret do the same.

“Where are we?” Emma muttered and looked up. Above her, Hook and Cora were climbing the narrow walls of what Emma suddenly assumed was a well. “Hey!” She screamed up at them.

“You’re too late, Swan,” Hook said, grinning down at her.

“Like hell,” Emma growled to herself and began to climb the rough, stone walls blessed with ample footholds. The closer she got to the top, the stranger the light seemed to feel. “What is that?” she asked when she was a few metres below Hook. 

With Cora ahead of him, the man said, “No idea, love.”

“It’s a death curse,” Cora said, her voice echoing down the well shaft. “Rumple,” she muttered a moment later.

“Can you get through it?” Emma asked, straining her neck around the people above her to see the curse. Her back pressed against the cold brick, and bracing herself with her legs, Emma freed her hands and reached up to tug on Hook’s boot. “Move.”

“Say please.”

“Now.”

The man slid down the wall and was soon beside her. “I do like a challenging woman.”

“I do like it when you’re nowhere near me.” Emma kicked out at the man’s hold on the rock wall and he let out a yelp as gravity plummeted him to the water below. “Watch out!” Emma yelled down to Mary Margaret who had taken a tentative climb up the rock face. The woman quickly flattened herself against the wall. Emma sent her an apologetic grimace, but had more important things to take care of.

Looking up, she could see Cora was studying the green curse swirling at the top of the well. Climbing up beside her Emma snatched her by the throat. There was no way she was going to let this woman get to those she loved.

Cora sneered at her and thrust her hand into Emma’s chest, forcing Emma to release her grip and double over in pain, her back digging into the rock wall and her feet nearly slipping on the opposite side. Cora’s hand in her chest felt nothing like Regina’s. Regina’s touch had always been gentle, but Cora’s invasion of her chest felt like agony and fire. It also cracked something and a flood of unreachable memories hit Emma. A bouncing castle. A side show. The dark shadowed looming on the horizon. 

Emma gasped. It was her heart. They had been in _her_ heart!

“You foolish girl,” Cora said, chuckling. “Just who do you think you are?”

Emma smiled as the memories of her heart clarified in her mind. She remembered Regina saving her from the clowns, the way Emma a sought to understand her, the way they made love … Regina’s willingness to die as a sacrifice. That last thought made Emma’s face fall. Regina had sacrificed herself for her. For Henry. Emma stared at Cora and knew she was ready to do the same. As long as Henry was safe, she would sacrifice everything the way Regina had. Emma said to Cora, “I’m the … saviour.”

Cora laughed. “You, are _nothing_.” Cora squeezed her heart and Emma screamed. “Time to say goodbye, _Saviour_.”

Emma shook her head. _No. Cora wasn’t going to win. Cora wasn’t going to reach Storybrooke._

Cora tugged on her heart but the organ refused to move. Frowning, she tried again.

Emma blinked through the pain and confusion. _She can’t take my heart._ A grin grew on her face and she whispered, “Regina.”

Cora squeezed. “What has my daughter got to do with this?”

Emma began to smile. “Everything.”

Shoving at Emma’s chest, she said, “Explain yourself.”

“You can’t reach her,” Emma said. “She’s free from you. She’s free from her curse. There’s nothing you can do to get through to her now.”

“What are you talking about?”

 “Regina is in a sleeping curse.”

Cora’s hand nearly slipped. “What? How! Who cursed her?”

“She did it to herself to save me. To save Snow. To save her son.”

Shaking her head, Cora squeezed once again. “No. Regina wouldn’t do such a thing. Why would she want to save _you?_ ”

Emma smiled. “She did it for love.”

“Love?” Cora laughed. “Oh, dear girl, _love_ is weakness.”

“No,” Emma said as Cora once again tried to rip her heart from her chest. “It’s strength.” Arching her back, Emma harnessed an energy she didn’t know she possessed and it burst from her in a pulse of light. Cora was thrown against the well wall before slipping to the water ten metres below. Above Emma, the green swirling curse crumbled under the onslaught of pure light and dispersed. Taking a moment to catch her breath, Emma looked down to find Hook and Cora struggling in the water. Mary Margaret was just below her and staring at her strangely. 

“Come on, we need to get out of here,” Emma said, heaving herself to the top of the well. 

“Miss Swan?” Rumple greeted them as they climbed the lip of the brick structure. 

Emma eyed him warily before finding Henry in tears not far behind him. “Henry!”

“Mum!” Her son rushed to her and nearly knocked her down with the force of his hug. “I thought you were gone! Mr Gold cursed the well. I couldn’t stop him.”

Emma sent Rumple a glare and said, “Cora and Hook are in the well. Do something about it.”

The man looked briefly alarmed and shifted off to the well just as Mary Margaret climbed out of the well.

“It’s okay, Henry. We made it.” Kneeling down, Emma took his face in her hands. “Where’s your Mum?”

“She’s—” Henry frowned. “Are you okay Ms Blanchard?”

Emma looked up to Mary Margaret and saw the woman’s teary expression. 

“Mary Margaret?”

“Emma.” The woman stepped closer to her and cradled her head in her hands much the same as Emma had done to Henry. “Oh, my sweet baby. You saved us.” Mary Margaret pulled her in to a tight embrace and began to sob.

“Ah … Mary Margaret?”

Mary Margaret pulled back and smiled. “You did it. You broke the curse.”

“The curse?” Emma frowned. “Oh. Oh!” _Shit. Everyone knew who they were now?_ Her eyes widened. “Regina. Henry, who’s looking after Regina?”

“David.”

Emma sighed with relief. The good Prince Charming was unlikely to stab her in her slumber. “Come on, we need to wake her up.”

“Wake her—oh.” Mary Margaret froze and stared at Emma.

Swallowing heavily, Emma said to Henry, “Stay with Mary Margaret. I have to run.” And she did. Sprinting away through the forest before her mother had a chance to reject her, Emma ran for salvation in the arms of her True Love.

*****

“Emma!” David cried when she rushed through to the back of Gold’s shop.

“Uh … hi.”

The man strode across the room and squished her into a hug. “I knew you’d find us.”

Emma smiled into his shoulder and patted his back. “Uh … thanks.”

“Snow.” David pushed away from her a little. “Where is your mother?”

“Uh … coming, I think. She should be here soon.”

Grinning, David kissed her on the cheek and ran out of the shop in search of Snow.

Sighing heavily and feeling overwhelmed, Emma turned her eyes to the woman sleeping on the sofa. _Regina_. Smiling, she walked over and held her hand. “Hi. I’m back.” She reached out and pushed a strand of hair out of Regina’s eyes, leaving her hand on her cheek and caressing the skin with her thumb.

Leaning in, she brushed a kiss on the woman’s parted lips and felt the now-familiar rush of magic pulse through them.

Regina gasped and opened her eyes. “Emma?”

Emma kept brushing her thumb over Regina’s cheek. “Hey.”

“You did it.”

Smiling, Emma shrugged. “I guess I did.”

Regina reached up and caressed Emma’s face. “And you … remember you’re my True Love?”

Emma nodded.

“My saviour,” Regina whispered as she drew Emma’s mouth near.

“My queen,” Emma whispered back as their lips touched once more. Deepening the kiss with a swipe of her tongue, they were soon interrupted as a group of people burst into the shop. Snow, Prince Charming, Henry and an entourage of dwarves.

“Emma!” David shouted. “What are you doing?”

Emma stood to face him.

“She’s the—”

Emma growled, cutting him off. “If you say Evil Queen, then we’re about to have significant issues. This is _Regina Mills_ , Mayor of Storybrooke” Emma said, reaching back for Regina’s hand. “Do you have a problem with that?”

David gaped a little and Mary Margaret put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, David. Emma is Regina’s True Love.”

“What? How? What?” David shook his head and blinked a lot. “No. How?”

“ _That_ is a long story,” Emma said. _A really long and kinda freaky story that no one is ever going to believe._

Regina began to chuckle beside her.

Emma gave her a mock glare. “Shush.”

“You did _not_ just shush me.”

Emma grinned.

 _You’re going to pay for that_ , Regina thought to herself.

“Oh, am I now?” Emma said, a triumphant grin on her face.

Eyes widening with alarm, Regina glanced to the group still spellbound by Emma and herself. Pulling Emma aside to the chagrin of her army of protectors, Regina said, “You heard that?”

“I did. Your mother – a real piece of work by the way – unlocked my heart memories.”

Regina grasped Emma’s arm making the woman wince. “My _mother_ is here?”

Emma nodded. “Rumple was taking care of her and Hook.”

“Hook! Emma, we need to—”

“Stop.” Emma placed her hands on Regina’s shoulders. “Just stop. We have been through hell, like a serious, large-as-life, in your face, technicolour—”

“ _Emma_.”

“—hell. And I just want five minutes to just be with _you_. Between diving in and out of our hearts for months on end and running about Storybrooke with you mind-reading me – still rude by the way – and then realm-jumping into a fairy tale, I’m tired. I just want to go home, shower for an hour, lie down on something that isn’t dirt, and spend time with you.” Emma smiled and reached out to stroke Regina’s cheek. “We haven’t really had time together yet, you know? Not without chainsaws, collapsing mines, infernos, and poisoned baked goods—” Regina’s head dropped and she tensed below Emma’s hands. “Hey,” Emma whispered. “Look at me.”

Regina reluctantly raised her head and took a deep breath. _I’m sorry_.

Emma smiled. “I know, and I’ve already forgiven you, remember?” Emma took Regina’s hand and placed it over her heart.

Regina nodded. “I remember.”

“Good. So, now, can we please go home?”

Regina smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Me too!” Henry shouted from beside them making the two women leap with fright.

“Henry!” Regina admonished.

“Sorry,” he said, still grinning.

Emma chuckled and ruffled his hair. “Come on, let’s go home.” Pulling Regina against her with an arm around her waist, Henry found his place at Regina’s side, essentially forming a familial guard to the entranced spectators warily eyeing the Evil Queen.

Crossing the room, the group tensed as one and Snow stepped forward.

“Emma, I think—”

Emma held up her hand. “I’m going with Regina. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind.”

Snow smiled and shook her head. “If you’ll let me finish … I think we should put a guard at Regina’s house. For her safety.”

Emma blinked and she heard Regina gasp softly.

 _Is she serious!_ Regina’s thoughts entered Emma’s mind.

_Yeah, I think she is. She knows you’re my True Love._

Regina gave her a side-long glance. _Oh?_

_It may have come up in fairy tale world._

_The Enchanted Forest, dear._

_Whatever._

Regina rolled her eyes to the ceiling. _Gods, help me._

_Shut up, your queeny-ness._

Regina glared at her and began to scowl.

“Uh … mums?” Henry said as the silence stretched out.

“Oh! Right. Umm … Mary Marg – Snow – Mum – uh – yeah, a guard sounds good.”

Snow smiled and patted Emma on the arm. Turning to the dwarves, she said, “Regina is now under my protection, if anything happens to her, let it be known that the punishment will be swift and harsh.”

“But—”

“I mean it, Grumpy,” Snow said calmly to the doubting dwarf.

 _Wow. She really is a hard-arse, isn’t she?_ Emma thought.

_She’s an annoyance that proved difficult to decimate, that I can concede._

_Be nice to my mother._ Emma looked over at Regina and winked. _After all, once I’m done with you, you could be related to her again._

“Related?” Regina said unintentionally aloud, capturing the attention of the room.

Emma smiled at the blush fanning across Regina’s features.

“What?” Snow asked.

“Nothing. Shall we, dear?” Regina said, recovering and marching her family out of Rumple’s shop. _And you did_ not _just propose to me via thought-sharing_ , she thought, glaring at Emma when they hit fresh air.

Emma began to chuckle, a feeling of pure happiness flooding her body. Nothing had ever felt this safe, warm and like home, and by the look of the smile on Regina’s face, she felt exactly the same way.

“You’re both really weird,” Henry muttered unnoticed by his parents as they locked gazes and smiles as they walked. “Really, really, weird.”

 

###


	18. epilogue

“God … Regina …” Emma said, panting and arching her back as her lover kissed her good morning. Bobbing between her legs, Regina kissed, sucked and penetrated Emma with that talented tongue, and Emma could do nothing but accept it for what it was: honeymoon wake-up sex.

The cuffs on their wrists glowed brightly in the morning rays filtering through the cabin windows. Emma noticed the glow from the corner of her eye. This connection, this gift, this occasional bane, was, according to Rumple, a curious side-effect of their bond.

Destined for True Love since Regina cast the dark curse, Rumple had gifted Regina with a chance to find Emma and heal her darkened heart. What he hadn’t foreseen, however, was the creation of a magical force that had been able to render his power useless, not to mention, thwart Zelena’s devastating plans. Singularly, Regina and Emma were powerful, but no match for the Dark One. Together, via their cuffed magic, they had proven unbeatable.

Stripped of his powers thanks to all that had transpired in Storybrooke when Zelena arrived, the Dark One had been gifted a chance to start over. A life with Belle, a moment of time with his son, a life without magic. Rumple, much to everyone’s surprise, was happy.

And Emma … she was blown away with an orgasm. “Regina!” she screamed to the rustic ceiling as she thrashed about on the bed. Puffing and unable to use her limbs, a trickle of sweat dripped from her brow.

Chuckling, her wife of eighteen hours, made her way up the bed and kissed the saltiness away. “Emma?” Regina asked as her wife regained cognition.

“Mmm?”

“If you _ever_ think of Rumplestiltskin, Baelfire or my sister while I’m making love to you again, I promise you, you will never feel my mouth on you again.”

Revolted, Emma’s eyes shot wide open. “What! Rumple? Neal?” Her face screwed up and she shuddered. “I was definitely _not_ thinking of them.”

Regina raised an eyebrow. _That’s not what I heard._

Emma looked panicked. “I mean … I noticed the bracelet thing.” She held up her hand. “And I kinda maybe thought of your heart and how we got there and totally was _not_ thinking of Rumple, but about the fact I have _you_. Neal wasn’t even mentioned. I think?”

“Emma, when I make love to you, you should be thinking of no one but _me._ Do you understand?” Regina scraped her nail over Emma’s breast, making the nipple reach out for more contact.

Emma nodded on a swallow. “I promise, I didn’t mean—”

Regina pinched the nipple harder than she normally would. “ _No one_ but me.”

Emma nodded again, taking the hint to remain silent.

Regina smirked at her wife, happy with her submission. She knew Emma’s thoughts had been innocent and thankful for Regina’s love via Rumple’s involvement, but it didn’t stop her from garnering pleasure from the fact that Emma’s mind had drifted and that she deserved reprimand. Releasing the nipple, she pushed her hand down and over the significant bump of flesh towards the curls at Emma’s apex. That bump was the reason Emma’s mind was so unfocused lately. Usually so one-tracked when it came to making love to Regina, since their child began to form in Emma’s stomach, it had short-circuited the blonde’s already dodgy concentration. Milk had consistently been left on the kitchen counter, the door to the mansion left wide open, and once, Emma had driven to work in her pyjamas. 

Regina chuckled.

 _Now whose mind is wandering_ , Emma thought, her words edged with a light tease.

“Yes, well, our daughter is worth concentrating on.”

Emma put her hand over Regina’s. “Yeah, she is.” 

Conceiving her had been a surprise, and the end result of a world of hurt in their lives. Regina had been tortured, Henry had been captured by Peter Pan, and they had all been forced to say what they thought was a final goodbye as Regina gave them fresh memories and a fresh life in New York to save them. Emma took a deep breath. That day had been the worst and she was sure her heart was still broken in places.

“Hey,” Regina whispered, wiping a tear from Emma’s cheek. “It’s okay, my love.”

“I know,” Emma said, giving her a watery smile.

“We’re safe now,” Regina said, kissing Emma on the forehead.

Emma nodded. They were. No more missing memories, no more green witches trying to turn back time, no more thieving suitors from Sherwood Forest, and nothing left to tear Emma from Regina’s comforting arms again. “I love you,” Emma whispered.

“And I, you, my beautiful wife.”

Emma smiled and accepted the kiss they had fought so hard to have. Everything about Regina was worth fighting for, and no matter what came next, Emma would do anything to keep her and their family safe. _Anything._

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: Obviously this story could do with continuation, perhaps an entire new story to capture all the Peter Pan, new curse, Zelena and Robin parts I mentioned in the Epilogue (not to mention the baby), however, I’m going to have to leave it here so I can meet writing deadlines both here and in the “real world”. No rest for the wicked! Thanks for reading and apologies for any editing errors and clunky narrative in parts. Time, alas, was not my friend to make this as readable as I wanted. My anal editor voice in me is NOT a happy camper because of it, I promise you that.


End file.
